This is the first overview of Performing Arts Collections in the Nordic Countries published in English from Nordisk Center for Teaterdokumentation. It is a register of archives, libraries, museums, theatres and institutions that hold performing arts records in their collections as well as a description of what the collections contain. Furthermore the main educational institutions are mentioned. As a foreigner to Nordic languages, it can be difficult to access Nordic performing arts archives and get an overview over the field. The ambition with this publication is to make the archives accessible to a larger group of scholars all over the world. For the first time in more than 40 years of publishing an overview over Performing Arts Collections in the Nordic countries (until now in Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish) and Iceland, we have included Greenland and The Faroe Islands. The performing arts tradition in these two countries still lack broader research. It is my hope, as editor in chief, that this inclusion will strengthen scholarly awareness of the performing arts history of both Greenland and The Faroe Islands in a broader context. We live in a digital era, with access to a great deal of digital or digitized records. Unfortunately, web links die out quickly. Thus, the editorial choice has been to link to the main web page of each institution. Not all institutions have an English web site, but with the descriptions in this publication, it is our hope that it will be easier to access the collections listed in it. The editorial team from Nordisk Center for Teaterdokumentation consists of Marjaana Launonen (Finland) Sigríður Jónsdóttir (Iceland), Benedikte Berntzen (Norway), Magnus Blomkvist and Rikard Larsson (Sweden), Birgit Kleist Pedersen (Greenland), and Anna Lawaetz (Denmark and The Faroe Islands).

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries marked a defining moment in Nordic art. From the cozy domestic landscapes of Carl Larsson to Edvard Munch's darkly beautiful The Scream, the diverse artwork of the period mirrored shifting literary and intellectual pursuits in their attempts to broaden the cultural conversation to incorporate the identities and traditions of the region. Through more than two hundred paintings, Nordic Art tells the story of this important period. In conversation with both Scandinavian culture and the contemporary art of the time, turn-of-the-century artists developed distinctly Nordic interpretations of realism, impressionism, and symbolism. The book focuses on the transitions between these forms of expression, as well as the impact of Nordic art on mainstream European art. Featuring works by well-known artists, including Carl Larsson, Edvard Munch, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, and Vilhelm Hammershøi, the book also introduces artists from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and Finland whose contributions, though crucial, may be less familiar to international audiences. With Nordic Art, David Jackson offers the first comprehensive look at this critical period of cultural development in the Nordic countries and the extraordinary art that arose during this time.

Performing Arts in Changing Societies is a detailed exploration of genre development within the fields of dance, theatre, and opera in selected European countries during the decades before and after 1800. An introductory chapter outlines the theoretical and ideological background of genre thinking in Europe, starting from antiquity. A further fourteen chapters cover the performing genres as they developed in England, France, Germany, and Austria, and follow the dissemination and adaptation of the corresponding genres in minor and major cities in the Nordic countries. With a strong emphasis on the role that pragmatic and contextual factors had in defining genres, the book examines such subjects as the dancing masters in Christiania (Oslo), circa 1800, the repertory and travels of an itinerant acrobat and his wife in Norway in the 1760s, and the influence of Enlightenment ideas on bourgeois drama in Denmark. Including detailed analyses in the light of material, political, and social factors, this is a valuable resource for scholars and researchers in the fields of musicology, opera studies, and theatre and performance studies.

Relevance and Marginalisation in Scandinavian and European Performing Arts 1770–1860: Questioning Canons reveals how various cultural processes have influenced what has been included, and what has been marginalised from canons of European music, dance, and theatre around the turn of the nineteenth century and the following decades. This collection of essays includes discussion of the piano repertory for young ladies in England; canonisation of the French minuet; marginalisation of the popular German dramatist Kotzebue from the dramatic canon; dance repertory and social life in Christiania (Oslo); informal cultural activities in Trondheim; repertory of Norwegian musical clocks; female itinerant performers in the Nordic sphere; preconditions, dissemination, and popularity of equestrian drama; marginalisation and amateur staging of a Singspiel by the renowned Danish playwright Oehlenschläger, also with perspectives on the music and its composers; and the perceived relevance of Henrik Ibsen’s staged theatre repertory and early dramas. By questioning established notions about canon, marginalisation, and relevance within the performing arts in the period 1770–1860, this book asserts itself as an intriguing text both to the culturally interested public and to scholars and students of musicology, dance research, and theatre studies.

A Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries 1925-1950 is the first publication to deal with the avant-garde in the Nordic countries in this period. The essays cover a wide range of avant-garde manifestations: literature, visual arts, theatre, architecture and design, film, radio, body culture and magazines. It is the first major historical work to consider the Nordic avant-garde in a transnational perspective that includes all the arts and to discuss the role of the avant-garde not only within the aesthetic field but in a broader cultural and political context: the pre-war and wartime responses to international developments, the new cultural institutions, sexual politics, the impact of refugees and the new start after the war.

An overview and insight into the unique collection of the Norwegian art collector Erling Neby. Erling Neby is the owner of one of the most important and precious private collections of constructivist and concrete art in Europe, and even worldwide. Over a period of thirty years, Neby has been building up a collection which is today unequalled in the Nordic countries and is of international standards and fame. Thanks to more than 200 color plates by such artists as Josef Albers, Olle Baertling, Jean Dewasne, Emilio Gilioli, Jan Groth, Arne Malmedal, Aurelie Nemours, Lars G. Nordström, Jesus Rafael Soto, Victor Vasarely, Thornton Willis, the book gives an inspiring insight into the international constructivist art from the 1940s till today.

The Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries Since 1975 brings the series of cultural histories of the avant-garde in the Nordic countries up to the present. It discusses revisions and continuations of historical practices since 1975.