DISCOVER TWO CITIES: Folk dance

Traditions through dance
I hear distant music walking through the front door while arriving on Wednesday evening to Karjalatalo in Käpylä, Helsinki. The youngest kids have just gotten out of their practice and are dancing happily towards their parents to catch up on what new they have learned today. The teenagers have just gotten back from the local K-market Masurkka and bought snacks for the night and are sitting in the back corner taking selfies and discussing about today’s school food. On the other side of the lobby the adults are laughing hard to some new cool happening and doing warm ups for their practice. My friends sit around small table speaking excitedly about our new performing dresses when I arrive greeting everyone. In this certain moment there is something that brings us all together. We all have the same hobby, Finnish folk dance known also as “tanhu”.

Well, what is it?

Finnish folk dance Finland’s traditional dance form which has developed mostly from variations of old court and ballroom dances once fashionable all over Europe and they are better preserved than elsewhere. In the eyes of foreigners it may look very different from the other dances of other European nations. Most of the dances we know were collected in the beginning of 18th century to represent Finnish dance heritage and even today some of the dances are danced all over Finland. Based on the collecting a certain working group started to define Finnish folk dance and put every found dance including vocabulary for all shapes, steps and positions into one book called “Tanhuvakka”, which has become bible of Finnish folk dance.

In the study of Finnish folklore three distinctly different regions emerge: the Swedish-speaking coast, the Orthodox areas of Karelia in the east, and the rest of Finland. The first two of these have preserved many older dance forms because of their peripheral location. Besides, in these regions religion has always rather favoured dancing. The dances collected among the Swedish-speaking Finns have to a certain degree been influenced by Swedish dances. Stylistically, however, they belong to the Finnish dance tradition.

Karelian dances allow the dancers more liberty to improvise within the figures of the dance than those of western Finland, where the rules are quite strict. The dances of eastern Karelia show some Russian influence, e.g. in the form of men’s solos, which do not appear elsewhere in Finland.

Here are a few videos about Finnish folk dances:

Traditional Karelian dance by Junnut/ISOn Tanhuujat

The most typical feature is the numerous repetitions - first gentlemen then ladies, first clockwise then anti-clockwise, etc. Rhythms are usually simple but they have great variety in tempo, mood, steps and figures. There is a surprising difference between the brisk and lively polka and the solemn, melancholic minuet. The main explanation for this variety is that dances deriving from different ages and cultural backgrounds have been preserved in Finland. Next year, 2016, Finnish folk dance turns years when 150 years has been from the first official Finnish folk dance performance.

I get often asked about my hobby cause it isn’t the most wanted and popular hobby to have. In Finland people often get this image of middle-aged men and women dancing clumsily to a badly played polka or humppa and get the wrong picture of todays folk music and dance. It is nothing like it used to be in the 80s or 60s! Well, of course there are those middle-aged men and women dancing without rhythm and singing loudly that traditional melody but it isn’t absolutely the whole case. Finnish folk dance changes constantly where as people develop.
Tanhuvakka is the bible, but it is also the base
to build on to. When you know all steps and shapes, it is easy to variate those and put own twist on to dances or build completely own ones. Tanhuvakka is full of dances to dance, but it is also allowed to change those as much as you want. There is also no limits for the music, but it is rather Finnish music and most likely folk music, but I’ve seen many different performances from heavy metal to Robin’s Boom Kah. In performances it is prefered to have live music as it used to be back in the old days. Finnish folk dance has spread it’s wings also into the world of dance motion classes. Few years back this motive dance form FolkJam was created by Oulu university benefiting the traditional dance moves and Finnish folk music.

My mom put me to a first dance practice when I was 3 years old and still here I am dancing 14 years later enjoying it. I dance in a dance group called “Roigu” and teach with my friend one group for 8-11 old girls and boys named “Jenga”. We make our own choreographies and design our dance costumes by ourselves respecting the traditions but whilst creating something new and exciting. In our rehearsals we dance, sing, play different games and the most importantly have fun. We learn new techniques and dances and each group produces a performance which is judged annually in the classification event somewhere in Finland.

My group Roigu performing at the classification event last year.

Junnut performing at annual Finnish folk dance and music cruise Folklandia.

Finnish folk dance is a dance form where you get to travel without being high-class and overly talented. Via folk dance I have went to Norway, Denmark and Iceland, I have cruised in the Baltic sea boat full of other dancers, gotten to be a part of Finnish- Estonian dance piece with over 4000 other folk dancers and much more. I think Finnish folk dance is worth trying nowadays. Next time someone tells you that they dance Finnish folk dance, I hope you see them in a new light.