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Tango Finlandia (Maximilian Bauer, Austria)
Foreign Correspondents' Programme (FCP)
in Finland in August 2010
Blog article 11 February 2011
by Maximilian Bauer (Austria)
On the roots of tango on a trip through Finland
Vienna is moved by the dancing mania. Every carnival season thousands of debutants and experienced dancers flock into the prestigious palaces of the city to celebrate the traditional balls. Many of those jamborees have a long history. For example, the ball of the confectioners was celebrated for the 110th time this January. But the most famous ball is surely the Vienna Opera Ball which takes place in the building of the Vienna State Opera. As its name implies, the Viennese waltz is the most common dance during balls in the city, although you will also find other dances like rumba, quickstep, cha-cha-cha, jive or even tango. In most cases it won’t be the passionate Argentine tango, but the ballroom tango that has diverted from its Argentine roots because of the French and English influence. Mostly unknown and probably rarely seen on a Viennese dance floor is the Nordic version of the tango: the Finnish tango.
This version of tango is most likely to be seen in a local dance hall in the Finnish countryside. This may not be the ideal place a young reporter finds himself in when he is looking for the roots of tango. But luckily 21 students of journalism were invited for the Foreign Correspondents' Programme (FCP) in Finland in August 2010 to get in touch with Finnish culture and society. And so it happened that one of them, an ambitious young journalist from Austria who is fortuitously also a keen dancer had the opportunity to live one weekend in the Finnish countryside, more precisely in the village of Hietama, about 40km north of Jyväskylä. His host parents Mari and Markku were not only caring about their children and grand children, their farm and grazing dairy cows but they also liked to enjoy a nice evening at the local dance hall. Actually the dancing scene was quite alive. About one hundred couples presented their tango skills on the ever-crowded dance floor. The proper tango rhythm came from two live bands. They proved that unlike its Argentine relative, the Finnish tango has a slower tempo and is almost always in a minor key.
The fact that there was almost no one under thirty in the hall raises a question if there are any young Finnish tango dancers at all. The group of young journalists got the answer during the hip urban Flow Festival in the center of Helsinki. The “Trad Dance Party” took place on a small stage in the Flow Back Yard and provided the young stylish crowd with Finnish tango music. The dancers saw a beautiful performance by Darya Pakarinen and Månskensorkestern (moonlight orchestra). Darya, who is half-Swedish, half-Finnish says she prefers to sing the sad lyrics in front of a Finnish audience, which understands the deep emotions of a tango song as compared to the public in Sweden. Since the II World War, tango music has a very strong connection with the Finnish society. After the war, the tango became increasingly Finnish and hence gave the Finns a chance to meet at their local dance halls says Darya, “Thanks to the Finnish tango that we have a population.”
Since the group of young journalists knew what a huge impact this dance had had on the Finns (and their breeding) there was no dispute over performing a tango dance number with music from Darya in their good-bye-show at the end of August. The whole performance was a success and got snowed under with cheers. And after the Austrian reporter is back home, the ball rooms of the Viennese palaces will possibly see a new dancing style on the dance floors: Tango Finlandia
Maximilian
Maximilian Bauer (Austria), 2/11/2011
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