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. By contrast 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.

Rosemary Martin is Lecturer in Dance Studies, National Institute of Creative Arts, University of Auckland. A former soloist with the Royal New Zealand Ballet, her research interests include international education in dance, cross-cultural conceptualisations of the dancing body, dance and identity and dance in transnational contexts. She is the author of Women, Dance and Revolution (I.B.Tauris, 2015).

Eeva Anttila is Professor of Dance Pedagogy, Theatre Academy of University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland. Her research interests include dialogical and critical dance pedagogy, embodied learning, embodied knowledge and practice-based/artistic research methods. She served as the Chair of Dance and the Child International (2009-12), is co-editor of the International Journal of Education in the Arts and the International Journal of Education in the Arts and is member of the editorial board of the Nordic Journal of Dance.