Finnish tango

[MadamSamba]

Yes, piimapoika, I get the point. That's wonderful. Will be in Europe in January and have a choice of two continental stops. I'm sorely tempted to use one of them up on Finland.

I can only go for a weekend. When during the week is tango at its best in Finland?

 

[Ron Obvious]

As a finnish citizen I can confirm that the points made about Finland are correct. Except that we have up to 23 hrs of sun during mid-june.

I don't dance finnish Tango myself, but I am aware of it's existence. You can probably find it even on the ferries that go between Finland and Sweden. I would like to learn tango, but the Argentine variant.

 

[Sagitta]

As a finnish citizen I can confirm that the points made about Finland are correct. Except that we have up to 23 hrs of sun during mid-june.

I don't dance finnish Tango myself, but I am aware of it's existence. You can probably find it even on the ferries that go between Finland and Sweden. I would like to learn tango, but the Argentine variant.

Why?

 

[Ron Obvious]

As a finnish citizen I can confirm that the points made about Finland are correct. Except that we have up to 23 hrs of sun during mid-june.

I don't dance finnish Tango myself, but I am aware of it's existence. You can probably find it even on the ferries that go between Finland and Sweden. I would like to learn tango, but the Argentine variant.

Why?

Ok, it probably has to do with prejudice, but....

Nobody in my age (I'm 27) does the finnish variant -it's associated with pensioneers and lousy dressing (waistline too high and golf pants). It's not considered a real tango (some people say), but a folk dance. However, it's very popular here.

Whereas my image of the argentine tango is Al Pacino in a tuxedo.

 

[maleva]

I saw a Finnish Tango performance at the Montreal Argentine Tango Festival this past weekend, danced by 2 visiting Finns. It was lovely, but I would say it was more like ballroom tango than Argentine tango. I don't remember them ever going into crossed-system and the walk was similar to ballroom walks and they did the quick ballroom turns where the man goes around the woman and then the woman goes around the man. It was cool to watch though - I had always wanted to see it done!

 

[Sokkisha]

hjfghdfjghdfj

Hi! I´m just registered on this forum and i must first say that my english is veeery bad :cry: , but i´ve noticed that it was interested discussions here about Finnish tango, so i simply HAD TO register in and tell my opinion about the thing we are discusssing (dont know right word, -again ... :evil: ) So, please, be pacient =in finnish: olkaa kärsivällisiä! :lol:


Me and my wife, -we dance quite much! We go almost every weekend to the dance-places, and it´s our hobby! We take dance-lessons and go to dance-courses and practise many times in week traditional finnish dances. We are not competiting in dance but here in Finland almost each man can dance the most used dances, (at least grown-up people) during waltz, finnish tango, foxtrot (in Finland it is simply called fox and a little different as the European foxtrot), and we have here a much enjoyable and funny dances called by finnish "humppa", and "jenkka" and "polkka" and "Masurkka" (finnish names) which are traditional dances. Of course we dance in Finland samba, cha cha and few other latin dances in ballrooms.
We have a very special dance-culture here in Finland and we have several "ballrooms" in every town and in many many small villages. I don´t know if "ballroom" is the right word to say it (don´t know the exactly mean of this word), but the dancing-places are most in the beautifully places by the lakes and landscape.

About finnish tango: I´m not the best person to tell you people about finnish tango (it is a lot of better who can tell you), but i dance finnish tango so i try to describe you something about it. If here in forum is some people who can finnish or swedish languages, i could try to tell him/her so that he/she can then translate it to you. Finnish tango likes a lot of foxtrot, especially of slowfox (it seems like it during the basic movement). The basic steps are almost same than in finnish fox. First two of slow steps and then two of quick steps are used mostfully. Finnish tango has many of figures, but it hasn´t so complicated figures than AT. In finnish tango we move almost all the time forward, because it´s allways a lot of people in ballrooms and we have only little space to make the movements. All the time we go around the ballroom doing the basic step/movement and doing other figures when we have space to do it. Finnish tango is not like AT, it is different, but it´s still very enjoyable and very beautiful and very rich of feelings (if someone understands what i try to say). In AT we have a plenty of short figures (a few steps-figures), but finnish tango is some kind simplier. We have examply the side-walks and we use all the time many variations of turnings because that turnings can be easily used in the rush. If we have no space, we cannot walk backward in the rush. So; we hardly never use in the dance-places backward walks.

We have finnish tango-music which is not so different as the argentine tango-music. Maybe it´s a little bit faster by the rhythm... A few tango-songs which are very famous here, -are examply: "SATUMAA"(dreamland), and "LAPIN TANGO" (tango of lappland) and so on...

The famous tango-festival is called by finnish: "TANGO-MARKKINAT" and it has been linked here earlier. It´s arranged every year in summer in city called Seinajoki in western Finland. There is about 100 000 -130 000 person who celebrates tango-music and an tango song-contest and we crown every year a special "tango-king" and a "tango-queen" which go all the next year around Finland and sing in the ballrooms and other dance-places. If you people think visit in Finland, you do it same time when we have our tango-festival and i STRONGLY recommend you to visit some finnish "ballroom" that we call by name: "TANSSILAVA"! There you can see real finnish dance-culture at the weekend. It´s real original feeling when you have a lot of people who love to dance many traditional dances in the beautifully places. It´s important that you DON´T go to the restaurants to dance, but original ballroom called "TANSSILAVA".

I hope, you got about this message some knowledge that you were interested. I´m not a "special-dancer" -hardly good, neither the right person to introduce foreign peole finnish dances, but i saw that anyone was replied your questions, so i tried... It´s very fascinating to discuss with people who write from different places in the world, it´s new to me.

 

[pygmalion]

Hi Sokkisha. Welcome!!!

Your English is very, very good, from what I've read so far. Very good. I'm going to read through your whole post, then comment.

Thanks for joining us, and welcome to the forums.

 

[Sokkisha]

Hi Sokkisha. Welcome!!!

Your English is very, very good, from what I've read so far. Very good. I'm going to read through your whole post, then comment.

Thanks for joining us, and welcome to the forums.

Thank´s to you! Unfortunately there will be a lot of difficulties to say what i wan´t to say (it is so much to say :wink during my english...

But: Thank´s anyway!

 

[pygmalion]

Re: hjfghdfjghdfj

We are not competiting in dance but here in Finland almost each man can dance the most used dances, (at least grown-up people) during waltz, finnish tango, foxtrot (in Finland it is simply called fox and a little different as the European foxtrot), and we have here a much enjoyable and funny dances called by finnish "humppa", and "jenkka" and "polkka" and "Masurkka" (finnish names) which are traditional dances. Of course we dance in Finland samba, cha cha and few other latin dances in ballrooms.

Wow. It's funny. The only dance information I'd ever heard about Finland was regarding tango. So I didn't know this whole culture exists. That's also interesting because it sounds like dance, in general, is a lot more popular and widespread there than it is here. In the US, a lot of people still believe that dancing is for women. (It's silly, but that's what some people think.)

We have a very special dance-culture here in Finland and we have several "ballrooms" in every town and in many many small villages. I don´t know if "ballroom" is the right word to say it (don´t know the exactly mean of this word), but the dancing-places are most in the beautifully places by the lakes and landscape.

It sounds like ballroom is the right word. 8)

but i dance finnish tango so i try to describe you something about it. ... Finnish tango likes a lot of foxtrot, especially of slowfox (it seems like it during the basic movement). The basic steps are almost same than in finnish fox. First two of slow steps and then two of quick steps are used mostfully. Finnish tango has many of figures, but it hasn´t so complicated figures than AT. ... We have finnish tango-music which is not so different as the argentine tango-music. Maybe it´s a little bit faster by the rhythm... A few tango-songs which are very famous here, -are examply: "SATUMAA"(dreamland), and "LAPIN TANGO" (tango of lappland) and so on...

I'm not sure why I assumed that Finnish tango patterns and music were just like Argentine ones, but I did. I guess it only makes sense that the dance would have changed some, since it's been in Finland for quite a long time. 8)

It´s important that you DON´T go to the restaurants to dance, but original ballroom called "TANSSILAVA".

What happens in the restaurants that's different than in the ballrooms? Is it socially unacceptable to go there? Or is the experience just not as nice?



Thanks for your wonderful post. And welcome. 8)

 

[Sokkisha]

Re: hjfghdfjghdfj

[What happens in the restaurants that's different than in the ballrooms? Is it socially unacceptable to go there? Or is the experience just not as nice?



)

It´s just that the experience isn´t same, -original... In the ballrooms peole mostfully go to DANCE, but in the restaurants we have here in Finland a bad habit; people are so drunk in the restaurants that dancing isn´t whole thing to their interests. It´s more like british pub-culture here in the restaurants and an other thing too; there are some dancing-restaurants in each larger cities, but it isn´t the same thing. In the restaurants people are sitting in their own tables and both women and men can go all the time to ask someone to floor with her/him, and the dance-floors are quite small that you can´t dance so (good? free?...) than in the real ballrooms.

In the ballrooms are no tables , but people are sitting by benches beside (?) the wall. Only men can go to ask women to dance. There is an "ladies-hour" usually from 23:00 -24:00 when women can go to ask men to dance. There people really DANCE. You can get there alcohol drinks too, but people are not SO drunk those places...

There is a lot of ballrooms which are only by the summer-time used when we have warm here and mostfully in those places they don´t sell alcohol, but only bear. Unfortunately we have here in Finland same kind of drinking-culture like Japanese people... :lol: :wink:

But it´s not at all "socially unaccebtable" to go restaurant, it´s only that in the restaurants don´t exist the same dancing-culture...

To be arnest (?) there is some good dancing-restaurants too and in the larger cities people use more ´go to there, than in the country.


About the finnish tango-dancing there is one thing too, that i forgot to say: Most of (ordinary) people who dances it, use all the time only basic steps and simply turns to the right and left, but if you are a little better dancer, you use more figures and dance beautifuller. In argentine we dance all the time quite like some kind of "skiing", you don´t bounce so by knees much but you go like a train , in finnish tango we bounce a little more, but it´s not like jumping. Steps are looonng: the longer, the better...

 

[pygmalion]

Ahh. I understand. It's similar to that here, too. There are dances you can attend which usually have no alcoholic drinks served. People go there just to dance and tend to be better dancers (or at least are working hard at learning to dance.)

Then there are nightclubs where people go to drink and sometimes they also dance. There you might find a good evening's dancing or you might not, depending on how drunk people get. I think I understand what you mean. 8)

 

[Sokkisha]

Yes! You got it!


...but now my wife just said, that i haven´t been with her in the hole evening, so i must stop writing by this evening... :wink: Besides, tomorrow is working day again and must must go early to work.

let´s continue tomorrow!

 

[pygmalion]

Yes! You got it!


...but now my wife just said, that i haven´t been with her in the hole evening, so i must stop writing by this evening... :wink: Besides, tomorrow is working day again and must must go early to work.

let´s continue tomorrow!

Have a good evening. Tell your wife we said hello and that we said thanks for lending you to us for a while.

"See" you tomorrow.

 

[Sokkisha]

Hi again! I found a couple links which are about finnish tango and finnish social-dance-culture. First (tango-link) is written by "John" from Bristol who had own experiences about FT. Second is finnish "Dance-forums" link and both are written in english. John writes quite lot of finnish tango for he has spended a lot of time in finland. Click the "search this blog"-button to get other writings by John!

Links are these, silvou´s plait! :


http://finnishtango.blogspot.com/

http://www.tanssi.net/en/intro.html


p.s. I must warn you that John´s opinions (or italian woman´s ) about scandinavian women aren´t just like that... they are much worse :twisted: :twisted:

:wink:

 

[pygmalion]

Cool. Thanks for the links. I'm very busy today with work, but I'll read through this evening (late tonight for you) and comment.

Thanks again.