This study takes it's starting point in acknowledging that dance was established as a subject in upper secondary school within the Aesthetic program in 1994. The first part highlights and discusses contextual aspects on dance teaching in­cluding perspectives on gender and body. The second part contains an empiri­cal qualitative study on dance teachers' ideas on their practice related to the concepts of didactics and teacher knowledge. Fleck's theory on thought collec­tives is used as a way of exploring how dance teachers as a professional group relate to dance as tradition and teacher practice. As one result teachers show that they break with the thought collective as pre understandings on how to teach dance in the upper secondary school context. Focusing on pupils as indi­viduals, though in collective teaching situations, new possibilities for teaching practice are explored. Using Shulman's concepts on teacher knowledge, a number of categories point to teacher knowledge such as: pedagogical content knowledge, knowledge of learners and knowledge of contexts. Dance teaching becomes visible as a profession through the deep ability to use this diverse competence - artistic as well as pedagogic - in the daily practice. Within this practice the category curriculum knowledge is less explored and also somewhat problematic in the process of transforming dance as a field of knowledge into a school subject. In the transformation process, teachers ask for tools in the form of modets for interpretation. Explicit didactic concepts, such as finding the sub­jects didactic potential and its didactic form, may function as a toolbox in this process. Expressed possibilities and challenges relate to above mentioned areas as well as to expectations on the reformed Aesthetic program and the reformed Dance teacher education in 2011. Moreover, teachers retlect on the less ex­plored but highly topical aspects on gender and body in the upper secondary school context.