ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on dancing as various combinations of dances, music, costumes, gender and place at five different folk dance competition events in the four Nordic countries Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. It discusses presentational and competitive folk dancing based on ethnographic field research. The chapter examines the ways the past is represented in today's folk dancing, and which new forms and ways of interaction emerge in these activities. In Norway and Sweden competitions in couple dances dominate other dance forms, while in Denmark and Finland dancers also compete in contradances. At both Polsmarkesuppdansningen and Halsingehambon in Sweden, people are not allowed to choose their own musicians, while at the Landskappleik in Norway and Tanssimania in Finland dancers always have to find musicians themselves. Norway has the longest unbroken tradition of folk dance competitions in Norden with its kappleiks, which were held as early as 1880 as part of the process of creating Norwegianness.
