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.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was