Niels Bukh's Gymnastics School in Denmark, 1912–1933: Gymnastics, Erotics, and Male Bonding

Abstract

Around 1916–1917 the Danish gymnastics pedagogue Niels Bukh (1880–1950) created, in an international sense, a revolutionary men's gymnastics, and in 1920 he established Denmark's and the world's first folk high school of physical education and sport. During the 1930s, Niels Bukh and his team of gymnasts first became a symbol for the dynamic Danish farming community, and then for the face of Denmark both at home and abroad. Bukh changed the stereotypical male expression of bodily dynamics, which in Danish rural gymnastics had been almost military. He made it legitimate for the young lads to get in close physical contact and to work in pairs in order to create beautiful masculine gymnastic choreographies. Within the aesthetic history of masculinity, it has often been male homosexual aestheticians, designers, musicians, dancers, and so on who have opened new avenues for the expression of male emotion, which was a trademark of Bukh's achievements, too.