Dance, Diversity and Difference presents contemporary stories of dance, revealing the diverse voices of dance practitioners and demonstrating the ways in which dance has connections with families, societies, governments, the economy and can offer fresh insights into cultural and political change.

The countries surrounding the Baltic Sea - Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Sweden - have experienced immense social and political change, from the territorial maneuverings of Sweden, Russia, and Denmark, the reunification of Germany, to more recent moves towards independence of Eastern Bloc countries as the Soviet Union crumbled. Tensions surrounding the Baltic Sea have not dissipated but rather new challenges and contentions have emerged, resulting in a multicultural and multilingual region. Dance in the region has been tightly interwoven with political trends and events, yet the dance history of the region to date has focused almost entirely on state sponsored folk and classical dance. Dance, Diversity and Difference presents contemporary stories of dance, revealing the diverse voices of dance practitioners and demonstrating the ways in which dance has connections with families, societies, governments, the economy and can offer fresh insights into cultural and political change.

"This book brings to light, through a prism of dance, a world that has undergone enormous political and cultural change … Perhaps of equal importance, the scholarship embedded within this book is a reminder that dance is at once personal and global, intimate and shared, a way of being in and knowing of a world that has no boundaries." - Journal of Dance Education