Explaining the Finnish love of tango

By C.G. | TAMPERE AND BERLIN

THE land of a thousand lakes plays host to all manner of quirky pastimes. Competitive berry pickers flocked to Suomussalmi in 2016 for the World Championships. Annual wife-carrying contests take place in Sonkajarvi. Mosquito swatting (as many killed as possible in five minutes) is a popular competition in Pelkosenniemi. A less peculiar—but still surprising—phenomenon is the Finnish affection for tango, a dance associated with passion and fire rather than with Nordic cold and calm. How did the tango come to Finland?

If one believes Aki Kaurismaki, the country’s best-known film director, the tango was born in Finland around 1850. In “Midsummer Night’s Tango” (2013), a light-hearted documentary, he argues that the dance originated in the utmost east (a thickly forested region which nowadays belongs to Russia), where shepherds sang to ward off both their own loneliness and the wolves that would prey on their cattle. Locals started dancing in the dance halls by the lakes; by 1880 it had reached the west coast, where sailors then took it to the bars in Uruguay and Buenos Aires.

A more truthful explanation comes from M.A. Numminen, a Finnish artist and cultural critic. In his book “Tango is my passion”, he notes that the Argentine version is the original, arriving in Finland in 1913. A Danish couple performed it at Börs, a restaurant in Helsinki, for years. In the 1920s it was danced only by Helsinki’s bohemians; in the 1930s and 1940s an easier form of the dance developed, called the Finnish tango—or FINtango. That is when it began to take off. People all over the country would dance the steps (more closely resembling those of the waltz and the foxtrot) in wooden dance halls (tanssilava) in the summer, or indoors in the winter.

The country’s tango boom reached its peak in the late 1950s and early 1960s. While American and British pop dominated the global music scene, Finland’s charts were ruled by FINtango songs about the beauty of nature or the pains of love, usually composed in minor keys. Toivo Karki and Unto Mononen rose to prominence in this period; their songs are considered classics of the genre.

The heyday of Finnish, as well as Argentine, tango may have passed, but dedicated dancers remain. The country still hosts several tango festivals, such as the Tangomarkkinat in Seinajoki, the world’s oldest. Last month, the city of Tampere hosted its 11th annual Maailmantango, or World of Tango festival. Founded by Simόn Riestra Aedo, a Chilean migrant and the city’s cultural councillor, this gathering is small but appreciated for its celebration of all varieties of the dance.

For two days and nights Tampere’s cultural centre, a former Russian customs post, becomes a focal point for participants and guests from across Finland and the world. With its grand ballroom, as well as some smaller venues and stages, the appealing brick building offered an amazing variety of concerts, milongas (tango dance afternoons and evenings) and workshops. This year’s line-up included performances by stars of Argentine tango—such as Roberto Siri Quinteto and Martin Alvarado, a singer accompanied on the piano and on the bandoneón by Mikko Helenius—as well as of FINtango, such as Markus Allan.

Pasi and Maria Laurén, a local couple, teach Argentine tango in Finland and abroad. Mrs Laurén thinks that the affection of Finnish people, especially Finnish men, for tango is bound up with their quiet nature. “With tango music and dancing they can travel to another place in their thoughts, their minds and their hearts, and can express many feelings such as sorrow, longing, love and passion.” Their

milongas

and workshops were packed with men and women of all ages as passionate and stylish as their Argentine idols.

FINtango, too, still has plenty of devotees. Varia Sjostrom, a young Finnish actress and a tango singer, says that the touching songs offer poetic images, melancholy and occasional irony in their yearning for an eternal love. Kari Laakkonen and Hanna-Mari Tuunanen (pictured above), a couple who travelled over 400km from Polvijarvi in North Karelia to participate in the Wanha tango (Old Finnish tango) and Tangovalssi (tango waltz) competitions, said that they prefer the Finnish version as people who are “nature-loving and maybe…a bit old-fashioned”. After seven years of dedicated practice, they emerged as winners in both categories.

Even as the winter gets colder, the passion for tango won’t fade. The next big gathering takes place in February—when temperatures can fall to -10˚C—at the (appropriately-named) International Helsinki Frostbite Tango Festival. As intertwined couples take to the dancefloor, Nordic ice and Southern fire will meet and merge again.