The Polska: Featuring Swedish in Finland

Abstract

The paper examines the Swedish polska as a special case of movementscape in Finnish folk dance. The research is based on ethnographic fieldwork among Finnish folk dancers in 2013. Since the 1970s, the polska has been popular in Swedish folk dance, and this versatile dance form can be seen as emblematic to Swedish folk dance culture. During the last 30 years, Finnish folk dance groups have also eagerly adopted it: not only the dance itself, but a whole new style and embodiment of dancing with improvisation as an important element. Although there have been vernacular polska forms in Finland, as well, and folk dancers have danced them for decades, they have not been able to reach any higher status. Although Finnish folk dancers have adopted dances from other Nordic countries since the early twentieth century, the popularity of Swedish polska exceeds that of any earlier Nordic innovations in Finland.