Written by Martta Tikka
About Rhythm / Rytmitajuttomuudesta
Now that I’ve been in New Zealand for over three months, I’ve had to admit to myself that I’m a bad dancer. I blame my home country for that.
I found out that Kiwis have this thing called Jump Jam. One of specific familiar songs starts playing, and everyone who was influenced by this program just magically knows what to do. “People influenced by this program”, I figured, is everyone who went to primary school in Aotearoa. The crazy thing to me is that it’s not just a one but multiple songs, each with its own complex choreography. If you’re reading this and thinking to yourself that Jump Jam choreographies aren’t complex, you’ve proven my point. It’s that Kiwis learn to dance and Finnish people don’t. Whether it’s picking coconuts or doing kung fu fighting, you seem to know your moves. Kapa haka has to have a huge impact on this as well. I massively regret not taking a paper about it.
When I was trying to find examples of big moments of joyous dance learning from Finnish culture, the closest thing that came to my mind was this band for kindergarteners. (In need of a Finnish translation for “Head, shoulders, knees & toes” or other pretty simple stuff, search “Fröbelin palikat”!) Every child from 3 to 5 knows this band in Finland, and many adults cherish those dances as the only choreographies they were ever taught.
Doing jump jam for the first time, I understood next to nothing, did movements wrong all the time and probably embarrassed my ancestors. But I had fun. To my delight, it didn’t end there. As I learned more sunshine-and-rainbows Jump Jam dances, the tone of Fröbelin palikat started to feel a little bit… Off. In one song, they sing about a ship that is sinking. The little child listening to the song is supposed to save the situation by “pumping” the water out by doing one repetitive movement all the time. That’s a lot of pressure for a four year old, if you ask me.
Why are Finnish people like this? The answer might be found from our history. Dancing used to be forbidden in Finland during the Second World War, in 1939-1940 and 1941-1944. This was because it was considered bad for moral to have fun when people were dying for the home country. Some people still danced, but if they got caught, they had to pay fines. Most other countries did quite the opposite; dancing was encouraged, since it gave people something else to think about. I think it tells something about our culture of stiffness that we were able to hold these kind of laws for half a decade even though we were almost the only country to do it, it made little sense and gave the police unreasonable amount of work.
I don’t think questions like “Am I doing it wrong?” or “Do I look dumb?” are that rare in the mind of any dancer. It certainly doesn’t help that the culture in which one is trying to dance is a static one. Dancing is hard for Finnish people, unless it’s their job or they’re drunk. (The latter state actually explains the popularity of kindergarten songs: in some situations, they are the only ones simple enough to be danced to.)
I really like the attitude Kiwis have towards dancing, and I’m sure it’s not just built around one program for elementary school kids. However, that’s where I could start. Teaching jump jam dances to Finnish people might just ease the fear we seem to have towards having fun. I’ll just have to hope we aren’t too scared.
Maybe my people have some unresolved historical baggage. Maybe our elementary school system betrayed us in this account. Or maybe, maybe, I just have a poor sense of rhythm.
