Democratic Bodies? Reflections on «Postmodern Dance» in the United States and Finland

By looking at how ’postmodern dance’ signifies in the dominant American and local Finnish contexts, I offer a critical reading of how the notion of ’democracy’ is intertwined with particular dancing bodies and ideas of nation and ethnicity. This requires a historical outline for how ’democracy’ entered the discourse of dance, and specifically, how its meaning has shifted in relation to the canon of the art form. Using the contrast between the hegemonic centre and what is constituted as a (geographic, linguistic, ethnic) periphery reveals how ’democracy’ is used in contemporary dance discourses to obfuscate power relations inherent to art and its institutions, especially in relation to the agency of dancers.