Swedish History Museum (Historiska museet) · Östermalm

Dance Legends – Myths in Motion

Now showing17 September 2026 – 14 February 2027·kr 180

Costumes from three Swedish ballets, including Saint George and the Dragon, shown among the medieval sculptures and altarpieces of the Gothic Hall.

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St George's costume stands in front of a 16th-century altarpiece with its own fearsome dragon. Beside it is the dragon from Mats Ek's first ballet (1976), in loud colours borrowed from Chinese martial arts, its tail a fan of bright sticks standing in for a soldier's arrow quiver.

The Gothic Hall's altarpieces and Madonnas now hold three costume islands, one per ballet: Ek's dragon, Jean Börlin's Foolish Virgins under a banner reading DUM (stupid), and Birgit Cullberg's Eurydice Is Dead, which turned Orpheus into a story about a police state. You see the medieval telling and the modern one at once. Dansmuseet is homeless until its new Sundbyberg building opens, so its dragon is on an Östermalm sublet, like half of Stockholm.

Danstidningen called it small but effective, and DN found it striking. Both critics wanted more background: the costumes stand still on mannequins, with no film or photos of them dancing. Entry is the museum ticket (180 SEK, free under 19, half price Wednesdays 17:00 to 20:00).

Editor's pick

Costumes from three Swedish ballets, including Saint George and the Dragon, are set among the medieval sculptures and altarpieces of the Gothic Hall.

Look for

The 1976 dragon
Look for Marie-Louise Ekman's dragon for Mats Ek, in clashing bright colours, with a tail of coloured sticks modelled on the arrow quivers of Chinese martial arts.
St George and his altarpiece
The knight's costume is set directly in front of a 1500s altarpiece showing a frightening dragon, so the two Georges face off across four centuries.
The Foolish Virgins under DUM
Einar Nerman's colourful crinolines, painted in the style of Swedish peasant art, come from the Royal Swedish Ballet's 1962 restaging, with the word DUM hanging above them.
Eurydice Is Dead
Eva Ek-Schaeffer's costumes for Birgit Cullberg's 1968 ballet, drawn from Palle Nielsen's pictures, where Orpheus loses Eurydice to a dictator's police rather than the underworld.