Niels Bukh Research Articles

Gymnastikhøjskolen i Ollerup, das vivências iniciais a grande performance: um relato de experiência

Este estudo teve como objetivo descrever a vivência em um programa de mobilidade acadêmica viabilizado pela International Sport and Culture Association (ISCA). Trata-se de um relato de experiência na escola dinamarquesa de ginástica Gymnastikhøjskolen i Ollerup, em Ollerup, Dinamarca. O intercâmbio teve duração de seis meses no primeiro semestre de 2018, cuja programação incluiu a prática e a realização de performances de ginástica. Dentre aspectos do ensino holístico da escola e a importância da internacionalização para o método ginástico Dinamarquês de Niels Bukh, a vivência agregou na minha formação pessoal e profissional.

Gymnastics between Protestantism and Libertinism from 1880 to 1940: A Comparative Analysis of Two Internationally Renowned Danish Gymnastics Educators

The purpose of this article is to analyze and compare two internationally renowned Danish Gymnastics teachers, Jørgen Peter Muller and Niels Bukh. Whereas Muller’s home gymnastics had a cosmopolitan agenda that appealed to everyone regardless of ethnic origin, including many Jews, Bukh’s gymnastics increasingly became embedded in a right-wing nationalist frame of reference. Muller created an individual system of home gymnastics with a focus on health by means of exercises and the cleansing of the body that included a cold shower. In contrast, Bukh’s system was a collective form of gymnastics that emphasised the beauty of the young body. Common to both of them, however, was propagation of sexual liberation, which in Muller’s case focused on the naked heterosexual body’s manifestations in the sunlight and the fresh air. By contrast, Bukh was homosexual and through his aesthetic gaze he encouraged well-trained and sweaty young men to show their muscular upper body in touch-tight choreographies wearing only boxer shorts. It is the main thesis of the article that the contribution of sport to sexual liberation from late Victorianism’s firm grip is far greater than hitherto assumed.

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

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.

Heroisme i sten? Arkitektur, ny kunst og ideologi på Gymnastikhøjskolen i Ollerup

Heroism in Stone? Architecture, New Art and Ideology at the Gymnastics Academy in OllerupIn the period from 1920 to 1926 the internationally renowned gymnastics pedagogue, Niels Bukh, created a huge neoclassical inspired sports complex that completely broke with the dimensions of the small South Funen village of Ollerup. In 2007, a donation from the New Carlsberg Foundation opened up for the introduction of new artworks on the gymnastics school. The artists argued that Bukh’s “heroism” demanded an aesthetic counterpart. The article follows two main tracks: 1) Do the original art and architecture of Bukh’s gymnastics high school express authoritarian-heroic traits? 2) Can the new art on Ollerup be said to create a response to such alleged heroic aspects? The conclusion is that the traditional architecture and art at Ollerup contain only vague and tentative signs of “heroism.” The new artists that attempt to create a counterweight to Bukh heroism lands in the paradox that they themselves have built a much more faceless and soaring art than Bukh and his democratically oriented architect, Ejnar Mindedal, had originally established. At the same time, the new artists have moved around with statues and sculptures in such a way that the school’s fine sexual-aesthetic axis opposing feminine and masculine, heterosexual and homosexual, and internal and external, have been lost.

Interchanging Scandinavian Models? ‘Science-Based’ Interaction between Military and Civil Institutes for Physical Education in Belgium (1921–1947)

This research focuses on the (scientific) interaction between civil and military institutions of physical education during the interwar period in Belgium. Based on experimental scientific research, Albert Govaerts, the Research Director of the Military Institute of Physical Education (MIPE), concluded that the Danish gymnastics method of Niels Bukh was more efficient and suitable than the traditional Swedish gymnastics method, which had become institutionalised at an academic level in Belgium since 1908. Based on Govaerts' research results, Danish gymnastics was introduced in 1934 into the entire Belgian Army as the official method of practice and, a few years later, the Danish method was also adopted ‘externally’ in a few Belgian civil institutions. A chronological transition of Scandinavian methods as a result of the modernisations that were implemented did not therefore appear to proceed so naturally in Belgium. The MIPE was to carry out a similar role as a professional profile keeper in the field of physical education in Belgium up to 1947. From a sports historiographical perspective, these Belgian results form a starting point for further international comparative research into early interaction between military and civil institutions of physical education and the associated processes of discipline building, scientification and profile keeping.

Globalization Before Globalization: Niels Bukh and the American Connection

This article is about a man who was one of the best known Danes abroad in the 1930s. His name was Niels Bukh, and from 1920 on he built an imposing gymnastics school in the small town of Ollerup on South Funen. His team of young elite gymnasts demonstrated his gymnastics on several continents – in the East, in North and South America, in Africa and in many European countries. For instance Bukh's gymnasts gave demonstrations in the US in 1923 and 1926 and at the World Exhibition in New York in 1939. In several dictatorships too there was great enthusiasm about Bukh's gymnastics, not least because the strict discipline, endurance and appearance of strength of the gymnasts seemed promising for military purposes, as was especially evident from the interest Bukh's gymnastics enjoyed in several South American states during his tour in 1938. Bukh's gymnastics could help totalitarian regimes to create a young generation typified by straightness, dynamism and endurance. The perception that the Bukh gymnasts almost merged into one organism in their synchronized movements was used by the regimes, especially with the young, as a symbol of order, discipline and national unity in countries like the South American dictatorships, but not in pluralistic and democratic states like the US and Canada, where interest in the country's own youth education quite overshadowed the skills of the Bukh gymnasts.

Nationalism in the Age of Extremes: Taking Danish Gymnastics to the World

The inter-war period was characterized by the intense struggle for supremacy between communism and fascism with the seemingly fragile democratic states being increasingly involved in the confrontation. In 1931 at a ‘world tour’ of Danish gymnastics the great globetrotter Niels Bukh landed right in the middle of these political antagonisms. In the Soviet Union, around 1931, the authorities initially showed an interest in Bukh's rural gymnasts, who resembled the powerful, dynamic ideal workers of agitprop art rather than the worn-out, starving Soviet rural class-comrades that Bukh and his young lads and girls met during their tour of the USSR and who suffered the brutal consequences of forced collectivization. The extensive differences of opinion between Bukh and the Soviet authorities may have had an influence on his gymnastics' achieving only a relatively limited currency in the Soviet Union. On the other hand, Bukh and his gymnasts applauded a Japan which at the time was in the process of invading Manchuria. He allowed his troupe to be used in the Japanese military's propaganda offensive both in Manchuria and Korea, which had been under Japanese control from 1910.

The Gymnastics ‘Sexual Revolution’: Niels Bukh, Male Aesthetics and Homophilea

Niels Bukh became a key exponent in Continental Europe's attempt to maintain gymnastics' precedence over British competitive sport. His revolutionizing concept of male gymnastics mainly gained its fame through its effects on the male sex role regarding norms for touching other men, for the rhythmic expression of the male body and for the exposure of the naked and sensual male body in public. These features of Bukh's gymnastics broke with existing norms for the disciplined and correct male demeanour and would still be seen as rather daring today. In addition, it is difficult to understand the popularity of Bukh's new gymnastics for male heterosexual youth without including his own homosexual orientation and personal interest in the aesthetics of the male body.

The Struggle for Danish Youth: Fascism, Sport, Democracy

This article demonstrates the potential fascination of Nazi ideology outside Germany's borders in a country declared by the Nazis to be a friendly and racially pure zone and with the celebration of the athletic body as the common denominator. The article also shows that the use of sexuality as a political weapon is not a new phenomenon invented by modern American politics. The great paradox of the life of the internationally renowned Danish gymnastics innovator Niels Bukh is that he created a liberating male gymnastics but tried to use it for totalitarian purposes. Nazism's enormous gravitational pull stemmed from an extremely competent aestheticization of politics. Without a realization of the power that a cult exerts, it is impossible to understand, let alone resist, the appeal of Nazism to the human subconscious. Bukh was a master at playing on exactly these emotional strings. And this was why the Nazi authorities were so pleased with Bukh that they invited him to present displays in the Third Reich, rushed off to Bukh's little cult refuge in the North and introduced his gymnastics into German sports education. For the Nazis, Bukh's gymnasts were the incarnation of a perfection of the Aryan race.

Die ware rede agter Niels Bukh se besoek aan Suid-Afrika in 1939

“Gymnastics and politics: Niels Bukh and male aesthetics” is an excellent work by Hans Bonde (2006) and depicts the full and interesting life of Niels Bukh, creator of the Danish Primary Gymnastics. On reading this fascinating book it becomes easy to connect Bukh with Afrikaner nationalism, since the time period corresponds and Bukh's goal was the creation of a “perfect body” and a “perfect human race” (p.83). He was also highly active in right-wing Danish politics and was a Nazi supporter. As the Afrikaners were anti-British and therefore pro-German, it was easy for Bonde to create the impression that right-wing radicals in South African education circles were behind the invitation to Bukh to visit the country with his team of gymnasts in 1939: “… providing the European population with a symbol of a pure white strong physique” and “needed not to generate and lose its physical power in relation to the ‘inferior' races” (p.226). However, in-depth research reveals a somewhat different picture. Although physical education was made compulsory in South African schools in 1934, the period 1936-1939 was of great importance in the developmental history of the subject. The poor white problem and the urbanisation after the First World War left a large component of the European minority in a poor state of health. Apart from this there was the poor performance record at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. In order to resolve this problem the government founded the National Advisory Council for Physical Education in April 1938. One of its primary tasks was to make propaganda for physical education in South Africa. As a result of this Bukh and his team were invited to present his form of gymnastics across the entire country and not only in the “regions dominated” by the Afrikaners (p.227). Keywords : Niels Bukh; Danish gymnastics; Primary gymnastics; South African physical education history. South African Journal for Research in Sport, Physical Education and Recreation Vol. 30 (2) 2008: pp. 121-130

Gymnastics and politics: Niels Bukh and male aesthetics

From country boy to national symbol (1880-1930) -- The world tour (1931) -- The Nazi awakening (1933-1934) -- A new Olympia? (1935) -- Cooperation with Germany (1936-1938) -- New continents (1938-1939) -- German occupation (1940-1945) -- After the war (1945-1950) -- Sport and politics -- A man and his time.

N.F.S. Grundtvig, Niels Bukh and Other 'Japanese' Heroes. The Educators Obara Kuniyoshi and Matsumae Shigeyoshi and Their Lessons from the Past of a Foreign Country

AbstractObara Kuniyoshi (1887–1977), the founder of Tamagawa Gakuen, and Matsumae Shigeyoshi (1901–1991), the founder of Tôkai Educational System (TES), were both inspired by Denmark and Danish education, although in different ways. Obara, a representative of the New Education Movement in Japan, became interested in Denmark when he heard about Danish gymnastics, which seemed to be ideally suited to his vision of rigorous but non-competitive physical education. In 1931, two years after founding his own school, he succeeded in inviting the Danish gymnast Niels Bukh and a group of his students to Japan. The interest in gymnastics sparked off a wider interest in Denmark. Matsumae Shigeyoshi's attention was drawn to Denmark and to the Danish folk high schools as a result of his encounter with Uchimura Kanzô. Although not an educator by training, he decided to devote his life to education. This article explores the role of cultural borrowing in the thought and educational praxis of Obara and Matsumae. Although they uncritically accepted a Danish cultural memory (Denmark's recovery from military defeat in the nineteenth century through spiritual strength and education) and cultivated a stereotypical image, the adaptation of this image to suit their own needs represents a highly creative process which resulted in two successful private schools.

Dansk idræt under hagekorsets tegn

Artiklen belyser idrættens rolle og betydning under anden verdenskrig med fokus på bl.a. Danmarks Idræts-Forbunds relation til besættelsesmagten.Danish Sport under the sign of the swastikaOn 9th April 1940 Denmark was invaded and occupied. This article deals with the response of the Danish Sports community to the German Occupation. Immediately after the German invasion the urban sports movement proved reasonably staunch in asserting the traditional apolitical status of sport in the face of German pressure. However, the wish to maintain the range and quality of Danish sport gradually became crucial to a resumption of sporting relations with Germany, which gave the occupying power considerable propaganda advantages through Danish-German international sporting events. Several rural gymnastics associations were active in the initial phases of reactionary attemps by the the world-famous Danish gymnastics leader Niels Bukh’s to create a Danish Youth League. However, there was opposition to fraternizing on football fields and other sports locations. The Danish response to fascist militarism was complex – compromise and confrontation worked side by side.

The White Man's Body: Danish Gymnasts in South Africa, 1939

Extracted from text ... * This article is based on material from a research trip to the State Archives in Cape Town (hereafter CA) in July 1995 and from the archives of Niels Bukh*s Gymnastics High School in Ollerup (hereafter OA), as well as interviews with participants in the tour. The article is part of a larger dissertation on Niels Bukh, which will be published at the end of 2001. 1. Bukh*s official speech to the National Advisory Board for Physical Education, printed in the periodical Liggaamsopvoeding, Stellenbosch (Apr. 1940), 3-6. 2. For Bukh*s significance for Danish nationalism, see H. Bonde, 'National Identity and ..

Idræt og politik. Niels Bukh i Østen, 1931

Artiklen gennemgår gymnastikpædagogens Niels Bukhs udenlandsrejser og internationale gennembrud, som det tog sig ud ud i 1930'erne, og fokuserer særligt på rejsen til Japan og Bukhgymnastikkens betydning for den japanske (skole)idræt.Sport and Politics – Niels Bukh in the East (1931)With his tour of the world in 1931, the Danish teacher of gymnastics, Niels Bukh, secured his reputation both at home and abroad as one of the great figures of his country, – a picture supported by the Danish Foreign Office regardless of the government’s political alignment. Bukh’s group was received by the highest ranking representatives of the Japanese occupying forces in Manchuria and Korea and became a part of Japanese propaganda in the region. The fact that Bukh’s gymnasts performed in Shenyang, the capital of Manchuria, shortly before the invasion may have been a small contribution to the attempt on the part of the Japanese military to persuade the Chinese that all was quiet on that front. Niels Bukh’s long performance tour of Japan was a triumph for him and undoubtedly also acted as a meeting point for a Japanese population which was looking for fellowship in the throes of the anxieties, not to say the passions, of war. The spread of Bukh’s gymnastics in Japanese school P.E. programmes of the 1930’s can be seen in the context of the government’s view that they constituted an efficient form of P.E. in the militarisation of youth which culminated in the escalation of the war against China in 1937 and the attack on Pearl Harbour on 7th December, 1941. Japan was the country in which Niels Bukh’s system of gymnastics became most widespread, – a fact which can be attested in Japan to this very day. Surprisingly enough, Danish gymnastics have probably made a greater quantitative contribution to Japanese physical culture than vice versa.

The iconic symbolism of Niels Bukh: aryan body culture, Danish gymnastics and Nordic tradition

The iconic symbolism of Niels Bukh: aryan body culture, Danish gymnastics and Nordic tradition

“The Olympia of the North”: A Visit to the Niels Bukh School at Ollerup, Denmark

“The Olympia of the North”: <i>A Visit to the Niels Bukh School at Ollerup, Denmark</i>

A Summer at Niels Bukh’s Gymnastic Folk High School at Ollerup, Denmark

A Summer at Niels Bukh’s Gymnastic Folk High School at Ollerup, Denmark