Rise and fall of dances

This article is presented as part of the panel on Latin American dances as merchandise and heritage. It opens a discussion on how some dances are chosen as commodity or as ICH (Intangible Cultural Heritage). The concept of empowerment is tested on a Norwegian dance, East Norwegian Mazurka, and the article discusses how a dance can come into being and how it develops through time. The problems to phrase questions about the processes are investigated. Should we talk about, for instance choosing, selecting, or positioning dances to become commodity or ICH? All these words may seem to refer to single or series of actions with clear intentions of achieving just such results as mentioned. Probably broad and long lasting processes were bringing about the results, because large ranges of individual actions were going in the same direction. It does not necessarily mean that individuals would have any awareness of the processes they contributed.