Finnish tango

[piimapoika]

Great post Sokkisha. Your English is excellent. If my Finnish was as good as your English, I would be very pleased. Olisin hyvin tytyväistä!
I would suggest that a tanssilava is a "pavilion". I used this word in my blog to describe a recent visit to the Uittamo in Turku. It is reminiscent of the wooden cricket pavilions that are found in old-fashioned sports grounds. "Ballroom" suggests to me a very grand venue, full of chandeliers and gilt cherubs; and part of a larger structure: the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool being a prime example.

I have visited Finland 22 times in the last 5 years, and most of these times I have been to the Vanhan Kellari in Helsinki. This is a dance restaurant, and I have never had any unfortunate experiences there. I have been to the Galax in Turku once, and had a really good time. I'm not trying to be argumentative; I'm just describing my own experience. I agree that the atmosphere in the restaurants is completely different to the pavilions. And the open-air dancing at the Tangomarkkinat is different again. I would urge anyone to go to Finland and try them all.

There is a good programme on Finnish TV that I have managed to catch a few times. It is called Kesäillan Valssi or Summer Evening Waltz, although all dance rhythms are played, not just waltzes. Every week it comes from a different pavilion, and features a different well-known singer, while members of the public are seen dancing.

In M.A. Numminen's novel "Tango is my Passion" the hero takes his aristocratic Swedish partner to various Helsinki dance restaurants. She is familiar with pavilions, having seen them in films and on TV, but as for restaurants - "I’ve never been to a place like this."

 

[Sokkisha]

Thanks for your post, Piimäpoika! So... it was YOURS link that i gave to Pygmalion? I read many of your writes and they were very good! Idon´t know if YOU know that, bt this link that i (too) gave to Pygmalion, was given in Finnish "Dance-forum" (Suomen tanssipalvelin, www.tanssi.net) by someone to introduce finnish tango or "Johns" opinions of it. It said there very GOOD stories! Thank´s to you for talking good things about our homeland!

I mentioned (is that right word? => huomasin) that you visit often in Helsinki... Have you been in PAVI in Helsinki? It´s somekind of finnish dancers "Mecca" if i can say so... Anyway, it´s very qualified dancing place and it´s (i´ve heard, haven´t been there myself, unfortunately!) very popular between those people who dances a lot. Suosittelen!

About some restaurants; my opinion is truly only MY opinion and i agree that there is some GOOD dancing-restaurants too! Wanhan kellari is one of them and it´s very famous and popular place too. There is few restaurants which are well known in Finland, but places which I mentioned, are ordinary restaurants and those aren´t as good places as example Wanhan kellari and so on. In ordinary restaurants for example are very little floors (usually) and those are not made by wood, in "pavilions" (i think it´s better word to describe finnish dancing-places) floors are bigger. And as you said; there is different atmosphere. I live near Seinäjoki and in Tangomarkkinat is again different atmosphere (just as you said!). There is different places and each other can make his own opinion when visited those places. I personally like most those "pavilions" and here those are most famous places too. Maybe it´s a bit different in big cities like Helsinki between smaller places what people like.

Have you relatives here in Finland? I asked for you have visited so many times here...

Well; -i´m interested what´s your opinion about finnish tango? Do you like it ? I think you have noticed that most of finnish dancing people dances quite simple style tango, just like foxtrot only the rhythm is slower... But have you (of course you have in Tangomarkkinat and maybe you can dance it yourself very good too?) seen when someone who really does CAN it? (i´m not that kind of person, even i dance that every week many times) It´s really beautiful to watch, isn´t it?


It´s nice to discuss with someone like you, who has visited so mány times here, even you live in the U.K! Maybe we see each other in Tangomarkkinat some day...

 

[piimapoika]

I haven't been to the Helsinki Pavi. I hoped to go on 26th August, when Mira Kunnasluoto was performing there, but I had booked for "Sound of Music" at Seinäjoki on 1st September and couldn't afford hotel bills for the intervening period. I would move to Finland if I could afford it, and if I thought my cat could cope with life in a small apartment after being used to a suburban house and garden. But the Pavi is on my list of places to visit.

I haven't got relatives in Finland; I just fell in love with the country the first time I went there in 2001.

I have seen Finnish tango danced by experts at the Tangomarkkinat. In fact I danced with one of them myself. Finnish tango is very simple and very beautiful. If anyone is interested, I have footage of the tango dancing competition, and of Finnish tango singers, which I will share with anyone interested. I would have to send discs to the person's physical address, as I do not have broadband.

 

[Sokkisha]

jdfhgkjhgh

"I haven't been to the Helsinki Pavi."

Unfortunately, same here :cry: -but i´ll go there some day...

"I have footage of the tango dancing competition, and of Finnish tango singers, which I will share with anyone interested. I would have to send discs to the person's physical address, as I do not have broadband."
"


How long is the footage you have, and wherefrom it is? Who dances on it?

But, it might be too complicated to send this far, and too expensive... :?:

So you don´t have a chance to send it from somewhere else, library, from your job or some other place, -by e-mail?


Now i must go to change winter tyres to my car, because the winter has almost arrived and i guess, in this week or next; there will be raining first snow for this year. It´s just disagreeable job to do twice on every year but it must be done anyway :?

It´s difficult to imagine that someone from the biiiig world wish move to place like this :shock: for that reason that we have those long winters and gray depressing autumns and only very short summer. We have here all the time cold weathers and a very long time of the year it´s quite dark 18 hours of the day and night. But.. there IS something... YET :wink:

 

[pygmalion]

I have seen Finnish tango danced by experts at the Tangomarkkinat. In fact I danced with one of them myself. Finnish tango is very simple and very beautiful.

How do you think it's different from, say, Argentine tango? Meaning why do you say simple and beautiful?

 

[piimapoika]

I have 12 minutes of the 2001 tango dancing competition which I shot with a proper video camera in the Seinäjoki Areena. I cannot give the names of any of the dancers, but you do get a glimpse of Åke and Leena Blomqvist amongst the judges. From the 2005 competition, also at the Areena, I have 5 clips totalling 4 minutes 9 seconds. These were shot on a 4MB digital stills camera (I had run out of video tape) and are avi format. You get a brief glimpse of the ultimate winners, Frans Kärki and Johanna Lahtinen. Not much I know, but might be of interest to someone who had not seen Finnish tango before. I also have footage of some of the singers, including Arja Koriseva, Jari Sillanpää, Kaija Pohjola, Marita Taavitsainen and Mira Kunnasluoto.

I also have some copies of relevant programmes from Finnish TV. They are not always complete, as the person who recorded them for me sometimes clipped the beginning or end of them, or even partially or completely recorded over them. "I taped a very nice programme for you last month. Arja Koriseva was in it. But I recorded over it. Sorry." They were recorded onto VHS tape at LP setting, and I was required to give them back, so I copied them at SP onto a second VHS tape. When I got a DVD recorder I transferred them to disc. So the quality is not of the best; but they are still watchable.

I have the Tangomarkkinat semifinals or finals (sometimes both) for 2001 - 2005, and also the Raisio heats for 2003, which was Ailamari Vehviläinen's first appearance. I have two episodes of Iskelmä Prinssi, and two and a bit of Kesäillan Valssi, which show what a tanssilava, or "pavilion", is like. I also have 15 episodes of Jos sais kerran; a Christmas edition and a fragment of Bumtsibum; two episodes and some fragments of the singalong programme Tammerkosken sillalla, which includes tangos; some concerts, or fragments, featuring Arja Koriseva, Jari Sillanpää, and Sonja Lumme; the 2004 Eurovision heats, when Jari Sillanpää did Two to Tango; a fragment of a sort of senior Pop Idol competition featuring a mature tango singer; a harmonikka-playing competition which also featured an Argentine tango singer singing Finnish tango; a biography of Unto Mononen introduced by M.A. Numminen; and part of a cookery competition between Arja Koriseva and Lea Laven.

I also have an English language programme on Finnish tango produced by the BBC.

I know that Finnish winters have nights 18 hours long. I was once waiting at the tram stop to go the Vanhan Kellari and at 16:00 it was already pitch black. It was snowing so hard that if I had stretched out my arm I wouldn't have seen my fingers. The tram tracks were completely covered. The next tram was due at 16:11. And at exactly 16:11, to the second, it trundled up, pushing the snow away in front of it. Even a light dusting of snow would have closed down London for hours.

In summer it doesn't get dark at all. The sky goes a sort of dark blue at midnight, then lightens again.

 

[DancePoet]

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.

Hmmm ... I recommend seeing "The Tango Lesson". It presents a different image of AT then what is conjured up by Al Pacino in "Scent of a Woman".

 

[piimapoika]

Some rules for Finnish tango have been published by Åke Blomqvist on http://www.tanssikoulublomqvist.fi/english.htm This is for the dance competition to be held at the Tangomarkkinat next July. Although I have gone on public record that I would never go to the Tangomarkkinat again, I will be going this year. I might even compete, if I find a partner.

 

[blue]

Good luck piimapoika! I recently discovered that "piimä" is what we call "kärnmjölk" in Swedish - I drank it as a kid, but now it has completely disappeared from the Swedish store shelves. I believe the English word is "buttermilk".