Categories
Cover story Misc

Dance, dance, dance

Since the late-eighties an association of artists have worked for the production of modern dance performances and activities. In 1997 that association was established in a permanent place at Kaapeli (Cable Factory) with the aim of supporting the production of contemporary dance. Now Zodiak is doing better than ever. The second annual Z-In-Motion festival takes places in May and about 15-20 productions are presented every year. How is this done? Let's take a small tour behind the scenes.

Are you a dancer? Do you want to produce a piece? Send your application! Dancer-choreographer Vera Nevanlinna is part of the board of the Zodiak Presents Association. Every year the board decides the performances to be produce from all the received applications. “It is a really hard selection process because every year there is 70 or 80 applicants and we only produce 15 or 20 of them.” Don't give up if your application is not approved, “Production will be harder then and to rent a performance space will be more expensive,” Vera acknowledges, “but I think people should try to do it.”

Vera has danced since she was three. “Someone told my mother that I wasn't walking, but that I was dancing,” she tells. Since 1998 she has been involved with Zodiak and currently she is premiering the solo piece News, a 20-minute piece that she learned from the Deborah Hay performance commissioning project in Scotland last September. I agreed to practice the piece at least for three months before the first public performance,” Vera explains, “and that means that I do the piece in its entirety five times a week during those three months.”

 

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As in any production, someone needs to take care of managing the money. This spring, choreographer Hanna Pajala-Assefa is taking care of that part of the productions. “I don't get the money but I just coordinate the budget. It's quite nice to be able to help the production because as a choreographer I know that when the premiere is getting closer your mind is getting more and more focused with the artist work, so it's hard to get involved with the practical problems.”

Those practical problems can be very diverse, “I was working in a production some weeks ago and in the performance they were using lots of toilet paper,” Hanna explains. “When I saw the rehearsal and I saw that they were using 15 or 20 rolls per show, it was obvious that they should get them free from someone. It that sense, it's nice to help. Fortunately, it didn't happen during the paper workers strike.”

An important aspect of the show is the technical requirements of every performance. Tuukka Törneblom has worked for one year at Zodiak as technical director. “My task here is to make the light and sound design possible. Sometimes people want to have something fancy and I have to say that it's not possible,” he clarifies. “There are lots of tricks to learn here because it's not the typical stage. We miss a backstage, there are windows. Many of those are still new for me.”

 

Education and workshops

Apart of the performances and the productions, Zodiak is devoted to spread the knowledge about contemporary dance. The center organizes different workshops and lectures. Choreographer Anu Rajala has been in charge of the workshop Dance as an Experience in Body and Mind this spring. This workshop was “open to anyone interested in learning and experiencing more about their own movement” and it was “focus on encountering, sensing and bodily communication within the group”. The workshop results in a public performance.

Katja Kirsi is in charge of Education and Outreach at Zodiak. She plans different ways for artists and audience to communicate. Pre and after performance talks are organized which allow audiences to learn about the artists' work. Zodiak is trying to reach the widest audiences possible, so even if Finnish is not your best language, every now and then workshops in other languages, such as English, French and German, are organized.

In addition, big efforts are done to integrate dance into schools and get the young into modern dance apart from the hip hop artists' MTV choreographies. “Feedback youngsters usually give is that modern dance is odd, but at the same time they say they enjoy it,” Katja points out. “One thing I try to say is that it can be good to challenge your mind. I try to give them hints and tips to understand the performance: Why are they feeling like this? Why are they reacting like that? They have new questions for themselves.”

Don't be afraid if you haven't seen contemporary dance. The dozens of performances during the Z-In-Motion festival are a good opportunity to discover this art, “Come and see many pieces. There are so many variations of modern dance that you need to see several performances to see the whole picture,” suggest Vera Nevanlinna suggests, but the best advice she gives is, “Don't trust what you saw on TV!”

Categories
Cinema Features

The spider is back

Maybe many of you did not know that before this original appearance, Stan Lee dismissed the design for Spider-man that Jack Kirby initially drew. In this first design, that was never published, Spider-man was heavier and with more muscles, and instead of acquiring his powers because of the radiation, he could get his amazing powers carrying a ring. Ditko's ideas prevailed.

Marvel did not believe in the success of the new hero, and the first adventures were published in a magazine that was going to be imminently closed. In August 1962 Spider-man's first adventures were published in the magazine Amazing Fantasy #15. More issues of the magazine were published and the readers quickly identified with the new hero and asked for more. The result: the first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man was published in March 1963. The rest is comic history.

{mosimage}The first appearances of Spider-man in films date back in the 60s and have nothing to do with the enormous budgets of the Sam Raimi's movies. The first adaptation is an amateur movie directed and performed by Donald F. Glut done in 1963 in which Spiderman fights Dr. Lightning. Three years later, the first commercial Spider-man was done in Turkey (Örümcek adam, 1966). More popular were the tv movies and series in the end of the 70s.

Thanks to Sam Raimi the series went big in 2002. It was the first film of what it is expected to be a series of six. And what can the spectator expect in this third Spider-man film: Well, amazing new enemies such as Sandman and Venom, the extreme beauty of Kirsten Dunst as the red-haired Mary Jane, and overall the excitement of watching Spider-man dressed in a black costume fighting against his most powerful enemy: his dark side.

Categories
Cinema Interviews

Commander Zero

Around the streets of Manugua, Edén Pastora carries a gun while driving a car brought from Mexico and speaks to the camera. It is the first sequence of the documentary Edén Pastora – Commander Zero (Eden Pastora – Komentaja Nolla). The film portrays one of the most intriguing characters of the revolution in Nicaragua and follows him in the municipal elections for mayor of Manuagua in 2006.

The documentary was made by Spanish filmmaker Álvaro Pardo, who has been living and working in Finland since 1979 when he decided to moved from Madrid to study cinema at the School of Motion Picture, Television and Production Design in Helsinki. “I didn't mean to stay this long in Finland. I was just a visiting student, trying to learn editing and cinema,” he remembers, “but then I started working, I got married and well, I'm still here.”

 

Why did you decide to make a documentary about Edén Pastora?

The idea came to my mind when I read an article that said that Edén Pastora was selling all his possessions because he didn't have any money to live. I was shocked because he had been such a great personality. We all also know that all the Sandinsta leaders are millionaires now, so I wanted to know why he was so poor.

How is possible that he didn't have the money?

He was considered a traitor, and a CIA agent, but he was only a guy who disagreed with the Sandinista regime. He received money from the CIA just to do something in which he believed, like he could have taken the money from any other source. He didn't have anything to do with the counter-revolution in Honduras.

{mosimage}Was it easy to get in touch with Edén?

Actually, it was. I got lucky. I didn't know much about Nicaragua and I didn't know anybody there. I contacted the author of an article I read that told good things about Edén. I contacted the journalist and he got me in touch with Edén. When I arrived there, Edén was in Mexico to get a car and nobody knew when he was coming back. After five or six days, he appeared. He's always very keen to be interviewed and I started the pre-production.

How was the filming?

It got a bit complicated because Edén never tells what he's planning to do the next day. It's a custom from his guerrilla days. Many people hate him there and would like to see him dead. I made two trips to Nicaragua. The first lasted around twenty days and then he decided to run for major, so I came back for another twenty days.

Is Managua a dangerous place?

Yes, it is. There's a lot of poverty and people have nothing to lose. Anything you have is more than they have.

What is your opinion about Edén now that you spent such a long time with him?

I always thought that many things he said in media were not true, but after spending time with him, everything he says is true. He is very optimistic and charismatic. One tends to like him so much that one is willing to do anything for him. On a bigger scale one might be able to fight and die for him.

Edén Pastora – Commander Zero will be show on YLE 2 on 8th May 2200

Categories
Cinema Features

A film (finally) exposed

Louhimies is the most acclaimed director inside Finnish borders in recent times and, with only five films, he has achieved a great reputation and, more importantly, captured a personal style in each one of his films. Having received the Jussi award two consecutive years, he is also a controversial character, not only because of the plots of the films, but also concerning issues in the post-making, which contrasts with his calm attitude. However, it seems that internationally, the Kaurismäki brothers are still unreachable when referring to exporting Finnish films abroad.

Riisuttu Mies will surely create a great deal of discussion among the most conservative sectors of the Finnish population. Nevertheless, the topic is quite controversial, since throughout the movie we follow a gang of peculiar priests, male and female, that split their thoughts between the love for God and the love for the bottle, the power and frantic sex – not exactly the kind of movie that many religious people would feel comfortable watching.

{mosimage}Many can argue that Louhimies pushes their stories to limits that have more to do with fantasy than with the reality of Finnish society, but it is certain that his acid critic always hides some parts of truth. The director is obsessed over showing us the darker side of Finnish society that goes further than lakes, sauna and Lapland. And surely he achieves it with his raw style.

In the main roles we find a group of old collaborators in his previous movies: Samuli Edelmann as the fatty childish priest aspiring to bishop –who is a director and musician himself, having released Rock and Roll Never Dies some months ago, Matleena Kuusniemi in the role of his calculative wife and Laura Malmivaara (who also happens to be the wife of the director) as the hippie young priest, Eve's apple. For those of you who live in or visit Turku, the locations of the churches may be familiar.

With Riisuttu Mies, some themes are repeated by the obsessions of Louhimies, such as the difficulties in love relations, the infidelity and the flexibility of moral values. You can like his visions of society or not, but surely it is worthy to give it a try and watch it.

Categories
Features Music

Jazz and a little bit more

For one week (25.4 – 1.5), Espoo's evenings are devoted to music. The main concerts take place in Outokumpu-teltta, a big tent installed next to the library in Tapiola. If the weather if good, the festival will be like a long summer night.

Of course, there is a lot of jazz. Good jazz. Musicians from around the world are coming to play, such as vocalist Andy Bey and saxophonist Archie Schepp, both from United States, and the jazz vocalist from Australia Michelle Nicole and her quartet. In addition, local sensation The Five Corners Quintet will make a special appearance on Friday night.

Jazz festivals nowadays include much more of other musical genres other than jazz. In April Jazz will get the blues, with the great Erja Lyytinen and the Blues Caravan, which features a trio of female guitar players (Sue Foley, Deborah Coleman and Roxanne Potvin) this year. Hot Latin rhythms will warm the tent with the Eddie Palmieri's Afro-Caribbean All Stars, and hip hop will meet flamenco with Ojos de Brujo from Barcelona.

Guitar woman

This year's Blues Caravan is travelling with three female guitar players: Sue Foley, Deborah Coleman and Roxanne Potvin. It is a nice shift for music usually performed by hoochie coochie men.

Canada-born Sue Foley represents the power of women in blues and popular music. Since her debut album in 1992, she has impressed blues fans with her sweet voice and wicked guitar playing. Apart from her career, in the last few years she has focused on the Guitar Woman project, which is meant to “document the relationship between woman and the guitar from past to present and beyond”.

The CD compilation Blues Guitar Woman (2005) features songs by contemporary and traditional blueswomen from the 1930s, such as Memphis Minnie and Elvie Thomas. Now, Foley is working on the book Guitar Woman that tries offer a concise historical and biographical account of women guitarists throughout the world and their stories and philosophies.

Music Born Everywhere
by Sergio Reseco Fernández

{mosimage}Someone wakes up hungry in some city in the middle of the night, goes to the kitchen to look for a bite to eat but finds out that the fridge is just empty. It has happened probably to everyone and for Ojos de Brujo the solution for this is simple: Go down to the streets and celebrate. These are just some lines from one of the songs by this band born in the streets Barcelona, but looks out to many different directions.

Flamenco, a gender born from pain, gets together here with several influences and rhythms as distant to each other as hip hop from rumba – as a matter of fact, they have been defining their music as 'hip hop flamenquito'. Categorizing them would probably take too much time and it would definitely be quite useless. Ojos de Brujo (Eyes of the Wizard) is usually formed by eight members and represents the mix of cultures that is currently felt on the streets of many Mediterranean cities, with Barcelona one of the clearest examples.

Due to the fact that flamenco is the main base of their songs, their concerts are lively and full of energy. Currently they are touring the world presenting their third album Techarí. They will be coming from Tallinn to play in Espoo. Zarkus, from Finland, will share the stage with them in Outokumpu-teltta.

Categories
Interviews Music

Tender melodies

Sister Flo released their first album in 2001, through their own label. Since then the band has been one of Finland's pop secrets, continuously praised by critics. Their new album, The Healer, hits the note and will make people hum the melody of the first single "Hyvinkää". Sister Flo's music has a warm and tender quality, like coming from small Finnish village without making much noise. As humble and even shy, bassist Mikko Salonen and keyboard player Janne Lastumäki explain the secrets of Sister Flo.

How does it feel one week before your album comes out?

Mikko Salonen: Anxious at least! It's taken a long time. We started with the first demos almost two years ago.

Janne Lastumäki: So far there have been two good reviews of it. We're happy then.

Why did it take so long?

JL: It took a bit longer because Sama the singer made a solo album. I played in his solo live band and we played some shows in spring and summer, so that delayed working on the album. We didn't have any strict timeline. Nobody put on any pressure.

How different is it from your previous works?

MS: We're very happy with it. The songs are a natural development from our earlier albums. They are very diverse.

JL: On this album there are much faster songs, more similar to our live shows. Our previous works had a soft general sound and then our shows were much more direct and energetic. On The Healer there is a bit more of that rock side.

{mosimage}You seemed to work hard on the mood and the melodies of the songs? How is the mood of this album?

MS: I think it's a bit darker and a bit more mystical or fantasy like.

While recording and composing, do you pay attention to someone other band's music?

JL: Sometimes, yes. For example, in The Healer there is this song, "Spirit of Christmas". We talked about getting a dark atmosphere, like Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper".

Now you have a pretty intense tour ahead of you during May. What do you expect of it?

JL: Our first gig will be on the April 28th in Tavastia with Rubik and Matti Johannes Koivu. Starting in Tavastia is a luxurious start.

MS: This tour will be special. We are excited to play in new cities where we have never played, such as Vaasa and Rovaniemi.

Are you afraid of playing in small cities?

JL: It will be interesting to see how it goes. We've heard stories that in places like in Vaasa there might be only five people in the audience.

MS: We trust our music and ourselves, so even if there are only five people we won't feel depressed.

Sister Flo is different playing live on stage. The band is much more direct. Why is there this different?

JL: I thought about this and I came to the conclusion that in studio we can build these huge sound walls that it's very hard to replicate on stage. It feels natural to concentrate on the energy. It's rejoicing.

You have had some gigs abroad in cities such as Stockholm and London. Were they positive experiences?

JL: Absolutely. All the trips abroad have been very great and brought us together as a band and friends.

Where does the band's name come from?

MS: First we thought about being just Flo, because of the Norwegian football player, Tore André Flo. I don't know why. We just thought about it. Then we found out that there was a band with this band, so we had to find something else.

JL: Adding “sister” was a bit like a tribute to The Velvet Underground's song Sister Ray. Then we even noticed that there is a David Bowie song, "Queen Bitch", with the line, "He's down on the street / And he's trying hard /to pull sister Flo".


The Healer is available in all good record stores now.

Sister Flo's first out of print album, Boys of Cat, can be downloaded from the band's website: www.hansoovoice.com/sisterflo

 

 

 

Categories
Features Music

We Don’t Need No Education

Lapko have been amassing a following in Finland for over ten years, and the prognosis is the trio will be alongside fellow "hair band" Disco Ensemble next to break overseas. Malja (vocals and guitar), Nordberg (bass) and Heikkonen (drums) have been friends since they were hanging around the schoolyard in the small town of Harjavalta, where they still gather to rehearse.

They've remained a trio, welded together as a tight, powerful live act and matured from obscure indie faves to a full-fledged rock band with an unpolished sound of their own. "Actually we've regressed, up to the point where you concede you're too dumb to do anything other than play in a rock band,” laughs Nordberg.

Lapko's signature melancholic melodies and Malja's tightly wound vocals have attracted recurring comparisons to Placebo, but the band stands firmly on its own ground. "We moved on from our punk roots towards a broader definition of rock, and, at some point, we were a sort of mix between Rammstein and Placebo with Finnish vocals,” Nordberg recounts. The linguistic issue was reassessed when the vocals on a demo apparently didn't pass as Finnish for a record company.

English seemed more suited for the kind of volatile rock with a raw emotional core that they set out to play. Lapko released their first album, The Arms in 2004 through Tampere-based Jukeboss records, and moved on to Fullsteam Records for their 2006 sophomore effort Scandal.

{mosimage}The new album, Young Desire, celebrates Lapko's regression by going back to the schoolyard and teenage trash talk. "There's a whole leather theme going on; leather being the material of choice for teenage tough guys. It's about being hard and acting like a badass, but still having that insecure and emotional side hidden underneath.”

Following the release, the band will be touring Finland. The theme of acting a role goes further once they hit the stage. "Playing on stage always has an element of theater to it, and we've been looking to Queen for instance, for some inspiration on that,” says Nordberg. The theatrics come across on the album as well, in more stagy compositions. ”We've got guitar solos there.”

In contrast to those young and restless middle-school misfits, Lapko have improved their communication skills as they've grown as a band. They've learned to listen to other people's opinions, including each other's, and they're opening lines of communication to the general public.

A song from the new album can be heard for free over the phone by dialling a certain number. "It won't be released anywhere else as a single, and the phone preview will be available before radio play,” Nordberg explains. The title of the song? "Hugging the Phone"! All you lonely, insecure badasses out there, dial up and start hugging.

Young Desire is released 2nd May. You can catch Lapko live on tour and at various festivals over the summer.

 

To listent to Hugging the Phone, dial +358 (0) 700 122 55 (cost in Finland 0,10 c/min +local call charge)

www.myspace.com/lapko

Categories
Cover story Misc

The circus is in town

The Eurovision Song Contest enjoys a healthy popularity and it is more kitsch than ever. Last year there were more than eight million votes (either by phone call or SMS) and the contest is followed by large audiences, even in non-participant countries like India, Korea and New Zealand. Drag queens, monsters, boy bands and the usual melodic singers compete for being the big stars for one year (or day).This year is no exception. 
 
Verka Serdyuchka, the Ukrainian participant is a controversial drag queen who has raised a great deal of protest in her own country. Angry Ukrainian nationalists held demonstrations across the country against Verka, who was chosen as Ukraine’s entry by an overwhelming majority. The nationalists claim that Serdyuchka is a grotesque stereotype of a stupid Ukrainian villager.

No less controversial is the song by Israel’s candidate. The group is Teapacks and the song is Push the Button. It refers to “crazy rulers” and says that “he’s gonna blow us up to biddy, biddy kingdom come”. Did someone mention Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? The band denies it, but some weeks ago Eurovision spokesman Kjell Ekholm hinted that the song could be banned. Any publicity is good to pull out some votes.

{mosimage}Post-Lordi Finland
After last year's nightmare, Finland decided to choose a more conventional performer in the form of Idols-tailored singer Hanna Pakarinen. She will be the entry for the host country and her song has some strong rock guitars, but the melody is cheesy as only a Eurovision song can be. As host country, Hanna Pakarinen already qualifies to the finals and she will sing the fifth performance of the night.

But Finland does not only face the challenge of delivering a good musical performance. The Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) is in charge of organizing the event, which will be held at Finland’s largest ice hockey hall the Hartwall Areena in Pasila, just a few kilometers from the city center – although YLE wants to name the hall the 'Helsinki Areena' for the event to avoid extra and free advertising. More than forty people in YLE have worked for months in the production of the event that has a budget of around 13 million euros. In spite of all the efforts, there have been some critiques already towards YLE’s work. The promised webcast of the contest draw failed and recently Estonia protested because of the lack of information from YLE about the technical aspects of the stage, the lighting and the sound.

Finnish polarities
The theme for this year’s contest will be “True Fantasy”, which “will embrace Finland and Finnishness in terms of the polarities associated with the country: light vs. darkness, northern fells vs. islands in the south, our strong bond to nature vs. fast technological development, taciturnity against inner strength and creative madness, as showcased by Lordi in an original way,” defines YLE’s Executive Producer Heikki Seppälä.Old national rivalries and friendships will arise again. Cyprus will give 12 points to Greece and Greece will do the same with Cyprus. One more time place your bets! And if you cannot stand the contest, put your earplugs in for the next few weeks.

Categories
Books Interviews

The perfect book to read in the toilet

What inspired you to write a book about shit?

The idea came at my daughter’s one-year birthday party. My family and friends was there, people from different ages, and everybody started to tell stories about that, so we realized the potential of publishing a book about…shit.

Paskakirja contains a great deal of research. How did you divide the work between Miika and yourself?

Basically, we first thought about what should be there. Then we expanded it. Most of the chapters are written by one of us and then the other one read through.

Swallow the Sun

Did you have to erase any part after talking to the editor?

No, actually there was one part we found that we should have included later, that is sex and shit. It is something that the editor said that should be there, but it was too late to be included.

How would you take it if somebody tells you that this book is shit? Would it be a compliment in this particular case?

Yeah, it depends upon the face they have when saying it – people make so many jokes about it…

It is also a very handy book when going to the toilet and some reading is needed…

It is designed for looking good in the bookshelves…and yeah….also for going to the toilet…

Why are people, in general, shy when talking about going to the toilet?

There is a chapter about it. It is a complicated issue. Philosophically, it is said that a human being is something that shit is not. And well, obviously shit is also disgusting. So the answer should be somewhere between there. I don’t know because there is not only one answer; different cultures have different opinions and approaches.

Did you find any group of people that adore shit?

Not like adoration. There is a chapter about people who “like” the shit, so that they talk about it a lot with their friends, and they have competitions to see who can expel the longest piece of shit…and that kind of stuff. Mostly males who gather many friends together and it is more a kind of a game.

Where did you find the sources for such a difficult topic to be researched?

We mostly made many interviews with doctors, psychologists and all kind of specialists. For example, a biologist was very excited explaining about her job. The other opposite side was the doctors, because no one wanted to be labeled for appearing in a book like this, talking about this topic. In the end we got a couple of doctors to collaborate.

Is there anything you discovered that shocked you while writing the book?

Most of things were not shocking, but kind of surprising. The most surprising thing was that shit has been used as a medical therapy, because some of the bacteria help to fight other bacteria inside the human body. The therapy is used even in Finland.

How did you get the paskatarinat (stories about shit) from people in the street?

Mostly they sent the stories through internet and then we also had a query about how long time they spent in toilet, for example. Eventually we gathered over 300 different stories.

Paskakirja authors

Was it complicated to get a balance between serious research and the funny side of the topic?

Both authors talked and thought a lot about it, so the title itself is so funny that we cannot underline it anymore. So we try to talk seriously about it, but then, when the stories come, they do not make the book look boring. So we found that we got a balance between giving good information and being entertaining.

Did you discover any different features in the habits of Finnish people when going to the toilet, compared with others?

It is difficult because for that, a similar research should be done in other countries. I have only this “Finnish” point of view, but I guess that there could be many differences with other countries like Russia and Sweden, but it would be a good topic for another book.

How likely that there will be sequel published in the future?

Well, there are some things we discovered later that were missed from the book, like sex and other stuff, plus it would be nice to compare with other places, but it is also very complicated to do.

Tell me more about the fact that, on average, men go to the toilet 7,000 more times than women each a year.

That is something that I found interesting myself. We made a query about that. There should not be any physiological reason. It could be that the men talk more about it, so they exaggerate it, or that women feel shy to talk about it. There is also quite big a difference about how long they stay in the toilet, so men stay much longer. It was a surprise that it was such a big difference.

You also include a special interview with Ari “Paska” Peltonen. What is the story behind that?

He is very popular in Finland; he writes and does a lot of stuff. He has had that nickname for many years. He told us that once he was in Russia and he was going to be interviewed by the national television, but when they heard about the literal translation of his nickname, they changed their minds.

And finally, you also investigated the music business…

Miika took care of that part more. We knew there were funny “shit stories” with HIM and The Rasmus, but the manager did not want them to talk about it. Not so glamorous…

Categories
Cover story Misc

The tigress of the world

 

Prima donna of the Grand Opera in Paris

Aino Achté was born in Helsinki on the 23rd of April 1876 to Emmy and Niklas Achté. The Achtés were talented musicians, and Aino learnt to sing from her mother. The audiences loved her from her very first performance. Aged 17, Aino was a tall, slender girl with big brown eyes, an exceptional voice, and great skill. She had another important asset as well, namely her mother. Emmy Achté was an ambitious and enterprising woman who had aspired to an international career herself, and studied in the conservatories of Stockholm, Dresden and Paris. It was the Paris Conservatoire she now chose for her daughter: it represented the absolute élite of the French musical scene, and could launch a successful student into fame.

Having passed the entrance examination with flying colours Aino studied at the Conservatoire for three years (1894-7). Her diligence and ambition were soon noted, but the competition was intense, and Aino's surname made her the butt of jokes as its French pronunciation resembled that of the word "achetée" (bought). "Excusez-moi, mademoiselle Achté, mais est-que vous êtes déjà acheteé?", one of her teachers would often say, eventually leading Aino to change the "h" in Achté to a "k", Ackté.

Regardless of the name, Aino's studies were a success. At the end of her third year she won the first prize at the annual competition of the opera class. This secured her a place at the Grand Opera of Paris, or the Théâtre National de l'Opéra as it was known at the time. Her début role as Marguerite in Charles Gounod´s "Faust" was a triumph, and the Opera eventually came to sign her for six years (1897-1903), during which time she made several recordings.

 

A cultural ambassadress

Ackté and the painter Albert Edelfelt were considered unofficial cultural ambassadors of Finland. At the Paris World Exhibition of 1900 the young prima donna had an active role in organising concerts of Finnish music. Her diplomatic skills and intimate knowledge of Paris helped ensure the success of the Finnish Pavilion, and thus consolidated for their part the idea of Finland as an autonomous cultural entity.

Ackté and Edelfelt, who had observed his young compatriot's career from its start, were friends, and Edelfelt painted a number of portraits of her. Back home, the two might have been rumoured to be more than just friends, but in the eyes of the Parisians Ackté was exceptionally celibate. Her private life gave little cause for gossip. In fact Ackté had been secretly engaged to Heikki Renvall, a fennoman lawyer, since 1896. Her mother and the Opera were against the marriage, as it was thought to be an impediment to her career, but the couple eventually married in the spring of 1901. Later that year Aino gave birth to a little girl, and in 1908 the Ackté-Renvall couple had a son. The marriage ended in divorce nine years later, and in 1919 Ackté married the general, Governor Bruno Jalander.

 

{mosimage}Disappointment and success

The Metropolitan Opera had been courting Ackté for some time when in 1903 she finally had the chance to disengage herself from the Grand Opera. The Americans signed her for two seasons, but the experience proved to be a disappointment. The competition was even fiercer than in Paris, the audience favoured the Italian style of opera, and Ackté could not reconcile herself with the language, the magazines' practice of reviewing performances (in exchange for bribes), or the American lifestyle in general. She missed Europe, Paris, and the civilisation she was accustomed to.

Ackté returned to Europe, and started increasingly to tour the great stages of England and Germany, singing parts from Wagner's "Mastersingers", "Lohengrin", "Tannhäuser", "Flying Dutchman", and "Siegfrid" as well as Puccini's "Tosca" and Massenet's "Thaïs". Her greatest success, however, was in the role of "Salome". Ackté had heard of this new, challenging opera by Richard Strauss already in 1906. Strangely transfixed, she studied the part zealously under the composer himself. Not only did she study the music, but she also secured a famous orientally styled dress (designed to give an illusion of near-nakedness) from the foremost fashion house in Paris, and worked out a choreography for the "Dance of the Seven Veils" with an expert of ancient on Greek dances. It was all for one goal: Ackté considered Salome the role of her life, one that could make her the No. One opera singer of the world.

The 1910 performance of Salome in Covent Garden finally obtained Ackté the climax she had longed for. The opening night was a high society event, and Ackté delivered on all the expectations. The audience was absolutely entranced by her dramatic, passionate Salome; the clamour of the crowd forced the curtain up sixteen times, and the stage overflowed with flowers. The reviews called her a cat, a tigress, an enchantress, a Woman, a pure sensation, and reportedly Strauss himself told Ackté that she was the best Salome in the world. 

Pioneer of the Finnish opera

Ackté's international career came slowly to an end at the eve of the First World War. She continued to give occasional concerts abroad, but on the whole the war made it easier for her to gradually retire from the stage. She now turned her attention fully to the needs of the Finnish opera. 

Finnish opera had experienced a golden age in the 1870s, but since then there had been only a few irregular groups performing at their own expense. There was, and had been for years, talk of a national opera, and Aino Ackté decided to turn the idea into reality. In 1911 Ackté, together with Edward Fazer, Oskar Merikanto and others, established the Kotimainen ooppera – Inhemska operan, renamed in 1914 the Finnish Opera, and today known as the Finnish National Opera. Ackté brought her artistic abilities, international style and glamour to the new house while her mother acted as singer, teacher, and artistic director. The first performances were a success, but the artists perceived Ackté to be rude and arrogant. She became entangled in bitter disagreements with the other founders, and was forced to quit the enterprise.

After leaving the Kotimainen ooppera Ackté began to organise international opera festivals in the historic castle of Olavinlinna, Savonlinna. The setting was perfectly beautiful, St. Petersburg only short distance away, and the town teemed with summer guests seeking amusement. "I wish to offer artistic experiences also for those people who have never in been to opera", Ackté explained to the press. She organised the festival successfully during the years 1912-1914, again after the war in 1916, and finally in 1930, when she also gave her last public performance. In 1938 Ackté was invited to become the director of the Finnish Opera, but after one glorious season, and renewed quarrels about budget, she resigned the post.

Aino Ackté died of pancreatic cancer on the 8th of August 1944. Savonlinna and Helsinki have streets named after her, and the City of Helsinki owns her summerhouse of 40 years, Villa Aino Ackté, which has been restored to its original appearance.

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Play your part!

Making films inside videogames has been a growing trend since the advent of 3D games in the '90s. Quake was the first videogame to give freedom and powerful resources to creators bringing hour long movies with custom built sets, special effects, graphics, real voices, sound effects and music could be created.

As the game engines, tools and 3D hardware improved and better and more diverse games were released, the popularity of making movies with games increased. Today, this trend is known as machinima, a term that defines both a production technique and a film genre. Machinima (pronounced: muh-sheen-eh-mah) is a combination of filmmaking, animation and game development. It is movies made within a real-time, 3D virtual environment, often using 3D video-game technologies.

Machinima takes the basics of real world filmmaking into the virtual world of the game. Pre-production is needed to prepare the screenplay, the storyboard, the sets, the characters and camera positions. Once everything is ready, filming can start.

Ready! Action! Go! The game starts when the players with the game controllers, instead of playing it, perform their role in the movie, as any other actor. The shooting of the movie can be through network playing. Machinima makers can also produce the movie on their own by using automated script and other tools, usually provided by the developers of the game. After the shooting, a period of post-production is needed for editing, adding special effects, music and sound.

This technique is much faster and cheaper to produce than traditional CGI animation. Sets and characters can easily be changed and there is no need for expensive hardware and software tools. The films are quickly spread over the Internet and community forums. Machinima fans created the Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences, where one can watch, create and share a variety of films.

 

{mosimage}Popular series

The most popular 3D games provide the scenarios for machinima works. Rooster Teeth is one of the most popular machinima community websites. They are the creators of The Strangerhood, a sit-com based on The Sims 2, where a bunch a Sims is gathered in an apartment for unknown reasons. Based in the game Halo, Burns has created Red vs. Blue. In this series nine intergalactic soldiers are stuck in a non-descript landscape. They are supposed to fight each other, but they wonder why they are there in the first place and joke about profound matters.

Grand Theft Auto, Second Life, Unreal Tournament and almost any 3D game can be the environment for a machinima work. As computers get more powerful, more people join the community and this goes mainstream. Several producers are already selling DVD of their films and series. If you play it, film it!

Machinima films can be watch at www.machinima.com

 

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Am I just a CC for you?

Is always sending e-mails an innocent action aimed at providing and exchanging information among co-workers? Answers to that question have recently been published in interesting study by Karianne Skovholt, who is a PhD scholarship holder at BI Norwegian School of Management. She affirms in her conclusions that under cover of simply wishing to provide information, employees can obtain support and exert pressure on the primary recipient.

 

“Employees can use an email’s cc function to position themselves in the organizational hierarchy under cover of simply wanting to provide information.”

Karianne performed her research by gathering more than 700 mails collected from an international company based in Norway. What was discovered is that the workers “rank” recipients, depending on how positively they think about them before sending the message. If they considered them as 'less relevance', they are copied as CC instead of in the “To” main field. This would follow the basic rules of a normal conversation in real life, where you have the speaker, the person who is addressed to participate directly, the participants and the listeners who do not take direct part in the discussion. People follow the same patterns when communicating in the cyberspace.

 

Next time you receive a general copied mail at your office, pay attention if you appear as CC or not. It can give a good idea about how the sender takes you into consideration.

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Knut, the cute Polar Bear

Everybody seems to be delighted by the appearance of such a lovely creature that will be contemplated in future time in the German zoo. For me, I just can feel pity. Knut is not the first animal who becomes a symbol of a zoo, or even of a nation. To my mind come the names of the Panda bear Chu-Lin in Madrid zoo, or the exceptionally white gorilla Copito de Nieve (Snowflake) in Barcelona zoo. In these three cases, the species belong to the black list of animals under the risk of extinction.

As far as I understand, the justification of the existence of zoological parks, those should serve for having a glimpse of what you can find in the real nature, more than as last hope of survival for species that are annihilated in their natural habitats. Knut, Chu-Lin or Copito did not have any other choice than living inside a cage, because most probably they will be dead if belonging to their natural habitats.

Days ago a new report by the UN was published where it is affirmed that the change of climate can lead to the disappearance of 30% of the present existing species if things continue the way they are. My god! Almost one-third of all the species existing on our planet are at serious risk of perishing forever, which has huge negative consequences for humankind. And what is humankind doing meanwhile? Watching Idols on TV!

Would you allow somebody to attack your children while playing in a park? So at what point do the human race became so passive when facing the imminent tragedy that will devastate our future generations? How much do we have to wait before asking for real measures to save the world? Until it is too late? This same discourse has been told by the ecologists for decades, but now the scientists are undoubtedly telling us that the time is running out, and we still prefer to look the other way.

What amazes me is our capacity to continue drinking our coffee and turning the page to the following piece of news, instead of instantly breaking into tears contemplating the tragedy of our mother Gaia, provoked by none other than ourselves. Saramago, the Literature Nobel Prize winner, in his recent visit to Finland, said that he could not understand how we were so worried to send spacecrafts to Mars when at the same time millions of people were dying of starvation on Earth. But Saramago, at his age, seems to still have faith about humankind. I am starting to lose mine.

Knut, my cute polar bear, I just hope a long life for you in Berlin zoo, and I just also hope that the day when the flame of your existence disappears – and let’s expect a long healthy life for you, my dear teddy bear – you will not be remembered as the last one of your kind.

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Dark people make dark films

My next film is about the civil war. It will not be exactly hilarious.

A darkish undertone exists in a large number of Finnish films, although lighter subject matters are made into film too, there is often something very artificial about them, like a forced smile. After all these years of Americanisation, genuinely positive films are few in Finland – you might point out that ”genuine” positivity is rare in the US too.

Are we a dark people? To some extent the answer is yes. Slavic, Finnish and Icelandic people very often find each other due to the same dark sense of humour. An Icelandic colleague once asked an international crowd what does a used condom and the M/S Estonia (a ship that sunk with 800 passengers about 10 years ago) have in common? They are both full of dead se(a)men. I laughed as well as the Russian guy, but the others stared at the Icelandic lady in anger.

A dark sense of humour means laughing at death, at the fragile and temporary nature of human existence, but I think it is vital to distinguish that from cynicism. Acceptance of irreversible death does not mean that there would not be hope in the world. There is.

Paha Maa (Frozen land) was a very unlikely box office hit, proving once again that depiction of sorrow can be appealing to audiences. This year’s best film so far, Miehen työ (A Man's Job), is also very dark, but not at all without hope.

I think a lot depends on skills and the quality of thinking. Telling true stories where good prevails is not easy. Just like simplicity is one of the most difficult things to achieve in storytelling.

So, if too many Finnish films are depressing, it needn’t mean that we all are – maybe we just need to learn about filmmaking. Keep in mind the golden rule: 95% of the films in the world are crap. Look at the 5%.

I am a keen Marxist in two senses of the word, the other being an admirer of the late comedian Groucho Marx. In his autobiography he wrote about a deeply depressed man who went to see a doctor. The doctor tried various things but nothing seemed to help this poor man. Finally the doctor suggested that the man would go see the circus, he had heard that there is a clown called Delaney who is absolutely outrageously funny. I am Delaney the clown, replied the patient.

Yes, we are dark people and there is no need to change that. Let’s make dark films then. But they can still be enlightening, optimistic and amusing, only if we become good enough storytellers.

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Miniature cups of coffee

My first social visit in Finland was becoming a success, although I really was bemused by the miniature cups. I actually started to become excited over the brewing coffee because in my worldly experience the best things always came in small packages. Take caviar, take diamonds, take DNA, this Finnish coffee must be potent stuff if it demands tiny servings to avoid any caffeine overdoses. In an act of bravado and also wanting to show off my Englishness, I requested a larger cup, "Darling, forget these cups. I feel as though I have Mickey Mouse hands. Bring me a mug!"

Cupboards were searched frantically in order to oblige the foreign guest, eventually one was found out on the balcony – it was being used as a vase. After a rinse and a scrub, it was set before me and filled with Finland's liquid black gold, a splash of milk and two heaps of sugar. My lips quivered in anticipation of my first taste of home-brewed coffee, the saliva sloshed over my tongue and the pupils dilated to the size and shape of sugar cubes. My excitement calmed and, with shaking hands, I picked up the mug and took a sip, wash it around my mouth and swallowed.

"Darling, did you clean the vase properly?" She began to laugh, but then noticed I was serious so she reassured me every effort was made to clean it thoroughly. I nodded thoughtfully, "That's a shame because it may have improved the taste." I stared down at the swimming pool of Finland's liquid brown mud sitting in my mug and suddenly realised the real reason for the small cups, although if I had my way they would have been even smaller…say, the size of thimble.

Thanks to the presence of fresh pulla to disguise the bland taste assaulting my sobbing taste buds I was able to reach the bottom of the well. I excused myself and used the bathroom, but upon my return I suddenly felt my eyes fill with tears because somebody had refilled the damn thing to the very top. The famous English stiff upper-lip began to quiver and shake, probably due to the side-effects of the so-called coffee now stagnating in my stomach.

As a bead of sweat began to form upon my forehead, I recalled the often-repeated statistic that Finns drink the most coffee in the world, which is an average of 450 millilitres per day, and assumed that, like the gradual intake of some poison, you slowly become immune to its deadly effects. I could only think that Finland has gone for quantity over quality, but before I could ask if this was true or start drinking the second bucket of coffee, we were leaving. After we bid her aunt goodbye and had left the building, my future wife turned to me and said, "God, I hate my aunt's coffee!"