Tampere Open Showcase 2012

Tampere Open Showcase was organised for the fourth time last Saturday. Tampere is the third biggest city in Finland and only 1,5 hours from Helsinki by train, so I decided to go check it out even though I had just come back from a business trip to London the night before. I'm glad I went, as I had a blast with the Pole4Fit girls - they even won the group choreography division!

I think this type of open showcases are equally important as more serious competitions. They give the opportunity for non-professional pole dancers to show their talent and training with a specific goal in mind is the most efficient type of training. It was evident that all performers: ten soloists, four doubles and five groups had worked really hard. Doubles have been a rarity in Finland and I don't think any studios offer doubles' workshops, so they have had to use their creativity. Thanks to all the performers for an entertaining evening and special thanks to the organisers!

Check out Pole4Fit's group choreo below. I bet you all recognise the song, Kiss by Prince. The choreography is by Pole4Fit teacher and Finnish Championship contestant Anne Laakkonen. Unfortunately the venue was dark and in my video you can't see all the dancers properly. Let's hope someone will post a better video soon!

Congratulations to all the Pole4Fit ladies from a very proud "manager"!

BTW, check out these awesome photos by Tuula Ylikorpi

http://poledance.pictures.fi/kuvat/Tampere Open Showcase 2012/

She's something like The official pole dance event photographer in Finland.

You can also read and discuss this post at http://poleranking.com/threads/tampere-open-showcase-2012.335/

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Finnish Pole Dancing Championships 2012 make it to the 10 P.M. news... ...funnies

Half a million Finns tune in every night to watch the 10 o'clock news on MTV3. In a country of only six million people and numerous news broadcasts on several channels, that's a significant tradition. I missed the news broadcast on Saturday, as I was watching pole battle at The Tiger, but was glad to hear that the Finnish Pole Dancing Championships had made it to this most popular news broadcast. That is, until I heard pole dancing was not featured in the sports news but instead as the funny piece of news of the night - The last news slot reserved for cute baby animals born at Zoos, impressive bottle cap collections or wife carrying world championships.

Screen capture from the news piece: Hanna Knihtilä doing a strong shoulder mount. This former soccer player is all muscle these days. She thought me how to do an air shoulder mount!

The piece itself was very positive, featuring small interviews with Oona Kivelä and Henriikka Roo and video clips from seven different performances. There's an ongoing debate on retirement age in Finland and the anchors were wondering what the retirement age for pole dancers might be: "Well, working life needs to be lengthened, so maybe 67?"

You can watch the piece for a few more days here. The performances are also available on Youtube, below are some of my favourites.

Like said, Henriikka Roo was on fire!

Oona claimed that this was freestyle - Can you believe it? Many of the contestants said they had to improvise a bit as the spinning pole didn't spin properly.

                                       

Check out Anna Lehtonen's incredible handstands! I bet we'll be hearing a lot about her. She trains at Pole4Fit, like me.

TankoSM 2012 pääsi MTV3:n Kympin Uutisiin. Tosin ei Tulosruutuun, vaan loppukevennykseksi. Itse juttu oli positiivinen, ja loppuvitsinä uutisankkurit pohtivat tankotanssijoiden eläkeikää.

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