Scandinavia is a subregion of Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. Scandinavia most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also refer to the Scandinavian Peninsula. In English usage, Scandinavia is sometimes used as a synonym for Nordic countries. Iceland and the Faroe Islands are sometimes included in Scandinavia for their ethnolinguistic relations with Sweden, Norway and Denmark. While Finland differs from other Nordic countries in this respect, some authors call it Scandinavian due to its economic and cultural similarities.
The Nordic Council is the official body for formal inter-parliamentary Nordic cooperation among the Nordic countries. Formed in 1952, it has 87 representatives from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden as well as from the autonomous areas of the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Åland. The representatives are members of parliament in their respective countries or areas and are elected by those parliaments. The Council holds ordinary sessions each year in October/November and usually one extra session per year with a specific theme. The council's official languages are Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish, though it uses only the mutually intelligible Scandinavian languages—Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish—as its working languages. These three comprise the first language of around 80% of the region's population and are learned as a second or foreign language by the remaining 20%.
Polka is a dance and genre of dance music originating in nineteenth-century Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. Though associated with Czech culture, polka is popular throughout Europe and the Americas.
In partner dancing, closed position is a category of positions in which partners hold each other while facing at least approximately toward each other.
The polska is a family of music and dance forms shared by the Nordic countries: called polsk in Denmark, polka or polska in Estonia, polska in Sweden and Finland, and by several different names in Norway. Norwegian variants include pols, rundom, springleik, and springar. The polska is almost always seen as a partner dance in, although variants in 2
4 time, as well as in compound meters also exist.
The polka-mazurka is a dance, musically similar to the mazurka, but danced much like the polka. Many polka-mazurkas were composed by Johann Strauss II and his family. Johann Strauss I did not compose any of this type of music; the first polka-mazurka example written by the Strauss family was in the year 1854 by Johann Strauss II, entitled La Viennoise op. 144.The polka-mazurka was not credited to the Strauss family alone, as many Viennese composers in the 1850s era also wrote many examples. This variant of the polka was seen as cross-cultural, as many of its influences can be seen in the French-polka with its feminine and deliberate steps as well as the exciting schnell-polka, where Eduard Strauss composed many famous pieces of this type.
The Mazurka is a Polish musical form based on stylised folk dances in triple meter, usually at a lively tempo, with character defined mostly by the prominent mazur's "strong accents unsystematically placed on the second or third beat". The Mazurka, alongside the polka dance, became popular at the ballrooms and salons of Europe in the 19th century, particularly through the notable works by Frédéric Chopin. The mazurka and mazurek are often confused in Western literature as the same musical form.
The polonaise is a dance of Polish origin, one of the five Polish national dances in 3
4 time. Its name is French for "Polish" adjective feminine/"Polish woman"/"girl". The original Polish name of the dance is Chodzony, meaning "the walking dance". It is one of the most ancient Polish dances representing Polish cultural dance tradition. Polonaise dance influenced European ballrooms, folk music and European classical music.
Nordic folk music includes a number of traditions of Nordic countries, especially Scandinavian. The Nordic countries are Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.
The schottische is a partnered country dance that apparently originated in Bohemia. It was popular in Victorian era ballrooms as a part of the Bohemian folk-dance craze and left its traces in folk music of countries such as Argentina, Finland, France, Italy, Norway ("reinlender"), Portugal and Brazil, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Mexico, and the United States, among other nations. The schottische is considered by The Oxford Companion to Music to be a kind of slower polka, with continental-European origin.
Nordic folklore is the folklore of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland and the Faroe Islands. It has common roots with, and has been under mutual influence with, folklore in England, Germany, the Low Countries, the Baltic countries, Finland and Sápmi. Folklore is a concept encompassing expressive traditions of a particular culture or group. The peoples of Scandinavia are heterogenous, as are the oral genres and material culture that has been common in their lands. However, there are some commonalities across Scandinavian folkloric traditions, among them a common ground in elements from Norse mythology as well as Christian conceptions of the world.
The National Nordic Museum is a museum in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States, dedicated to the Nordic history, art, culture, and the heritage of the area's Nordic immigrants. It was founded in 1980 as the Nordic Heritage Museum, moved into a permanent, purpose-built facility in 2018 named the Nordic Museum, and was designated as the National Nordic Museum in 2019. The museum serves as a community gathering place and shares Nordic culture by exhibiting art and objects, preserving collections, and providing educational and cultural experiences from Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish Americans. The geographical region covered by the Museum includes entire Nordic region.
Traditional Nordic dance music is a type of traditional music or folk music that once was common in the mainland part of the Nordic countries — Scandinavia plus Finland. The person who plays this kind of music might be called speleman (Swedish/Norwegian), spelman (Swedish), spel(l)emann (Norwegian), pelimanni (Finnish) or spillemand (Danish). Finnish traditional dance music is often called pelimanni music in English, while there does not seem to exist a similar, widespread term for the corresponding music from the other countries. It is often more meaningful to distinguish between the traditional dance music from different regions than between music from the countries as such. Some concepts in the field can be defined as Norwegian or Finnish, but most are either common to all four countries or local. Besides the dance music tradition, all countries also have other traditions of folk music that are not shared to a similar extent.
Bygdedans is the regional, traditional dance of Norway. Bygdedans are the oldest and most distinctive among Norwegian folk dances.
The hambo is a traditional dance that originated in Sweden in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is a couple dance in 3
4 time, danced to music played with a strong accent on the first beat and a tempo that varies from moderate to fast. The hambo is a dance with a fixed pattern and tunes almost always have a corresponding eight measure structure.
Nordic and Scandinavian Americans are Americans of Scandinavian and/or Nordic ancestry, including Danish Americans, Faroese Americans, Finnish Americans, Greenlandic Americans, Icelandic Americans, Norwegian Americans, and Swedish Americans. Also included are persons who reported 'Scandinavian' ancestry on their census. According to 2021 census estimates, there are approximately 9,365,489 people of Scandinavian ancestry in the United States.
The Association of Nordic and Pol-Balt Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Student Organizations (ANSO) is an international non-profit non-governmental organization striving to improve the quality of life of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans - LGBT - students in the Nordic as well as Baltic countries. ANSO targets its activity to LGBT students in Denmark, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Åland.
The Nordic countries are a geographical and cultural region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic. It includes the sovereign states of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden; the autonomous territories of the Faroe Islands and Greenland; and the autonomous region of Åland.
Danish traditional music is the music genre that has its roots in pre-modern Denmark. In this period it was common for towns to have one or more town musicians who played at dances, processions and certain rituals. In the 17th and 18th centuries, professional music performances were monopolized by town musicians, who also traveled into the neighboring rural areas to perform. Urban music and dance styles, often from other parts of Europe, penetrated the countryside and almost eradicated earlier styles. This period also saw the introduction of the fiddle as the most important instrument and the abandonment of earlier chain dances in favor of pair dances. Until around 1900, traditional music was the common musical culture of Denmark, but with increasing urbanization and the spread of classical music it became marginalized to rural areas.
