Mon, Jul 28, 2014 page7

• FEATURE: Finns dance ‘tangotanssi’ to find their inner Latinos

  • AFP, SEINAEJOKI, Finland
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  Tango has found a lasting home in Finland and every summer, the Finns’ love affair with the dance breaks out into the open, showing that under their cool North exterior beats a warm, Latin heart.

  For many practitioners of tangotanssi, the dance offers an opportunity to give free rein to emotions that social mores usually require them to keep in check.

  “Dancing tango gives us space for emotions that we find hard to express otherwise,” Outi Suoninen said at Tangomarkinnat, Finland’s biggest tango festival, which is held in the western city of Seinaejoki.

  This year’s edition of the annual July festival — also one of the world’s biggest — celebrated its 30th anniversary and attracted 116,000 visitors, which in a population of 5.4 million, is approximately one in every 50 Finns.

  The climax: crowning the tango “king” and “queen,” who become instant superstars in tango circles.

  “It’s about maintaining and strengthening the Finnish tradition of tango,” Tangomarkinnat artistic director Martti Haapamaeki said.

  First-time visitors to Finland are usually surprised to find that tango has a massive following an ocean away from its Argentine home, but to the Finns it makes perfect sense.

  “Tango is an ideal way to approach the opposite sex for a Finn,” Haapamaeki said.

  Tango came to the Nordic country in 1913, when it was still a part of the Russian empire. The dance was introduced by Toivo Niskanen, a ballet dancer who warmed to the exotic fad while visiting Paris.

  Modern Finnish tango, which evolved in the 1950s and 1960s, has departed from its South American origin in ways discernible even to untrained eyes and ears.

  The dance looks different — the couples pressing themselves closer together than in the Latin version — and the music has a distinctive local ring to it.

  “Finnish tango is a bit like military music with its striking rhythm, whereas Argentine tango is more fluid and gives more opportunities for dancing,” said Markku Lindroos, who studies tango in Helsinki.

  Tango in every part of the world is a mixture of joie de vivre and sadness, but some say the Finns place the emphasis decidedly on the “sad” part. Minor keys — traditionally associated with sorrow — are used often.

  According to historians, the melancholy mood reflects the atmosphere during and after World War II, when Finland twice fought against the Soviet Union and had to cede large parts of its territory to its numerically superior foe.

  “After the war, tango helped us come to terms with our grief. The loss described in the tango tunes attained a wider meaning,” said Yrjoe Heinonen, a professor of contemporary cultural studies at University of Turku.

  Since then, tango has had to compete with other forms of popular music, from Elvis Presley to rap and heavy metal, and as it enters its second century in Finland, skeptics wonder how long it can last.

  The optimists see little reason for concern, noting that the opportunity for physical intimacy is a permanent attraction that will appeal to future generations as well.

  “Today, people are always handling electronic devices and all communication is done electronically,” said Kaisa Saarinen, organizer of the annual Frostbite tango festival in Helsinki. “There’s no physical contact. Tango brings us very close physically.”

  Argentina’s Martin Alvarado, an internationally known tango singer who performed in Helsinki in February, said he was surprised by the vibrancy of the local tango scene.

  “I know Russian tango and German tango, but a tradition as strong as Finnish tango you find nowhere else,” he said.
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