Dance Legends – Myths in Motion

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).