In 2018, Aalto University Student Union is celebrating the Year of Art. Throughout the year, we invite various creative individuals or groups within the Aalto community to talk about their art. In August, we hear from the pole dance association Otanko.

Image: Assi Vainikka

Otanko, or the Otaniemi pole dance association, was founded precisely three years ago by a group of pole dance enthusiasts. The association organises weekly pole dancing classes and other related activities for its members, while non-members can enjoy their performances or try out the sport for themselves. At the moment, Otanko has around 150 members and 12 instructors.

The association operates within the Aalto University Student Union, but the atmosphere of their dance classes is most interdisciplinary: the group also features several students from the University of Helsinki, for example. There’s absolutely no need to have previous experience of pole dancing to take part in the activities. Classes are offered from beginner level onwards, and more than half of the current instructors began their own pole dance careers by taking Otanko classes.

Pole dance is an art form that combines dance and acrobatics, with its moves revolving around a vertical pole that’s around 45 mm thick.

The sport has its roots in Chinese pole – a circus skill developed before the Common Era – and in the Mallakhamb sport originating in 12^th-century India. In both of these, the vertical pole around which the athletes perform tricks is thicker and coarser than the pole used today.

In its current form, pole dance is still a young sport. The first studio was founded in the 1990s. There are constantly new moves, techniques and expression methods being developed which, compared to sports established longer ago, enables pole dancers to use a great deal of creativity even in world championship competitions.

Audiences can see pole dance performances at various events, for example, as well as in pole dance competitions all year round. In addition, the internet – especially Instagram and YouTube – offer a nearly endless supply of videos to watch. Anyone interested in the sport is welcome to pop in on one of Otanko’s beginners’ classes, for example, to see if pole dance is for them. There are also several commercial pole dance studios in the metropolitan area, in which you can try out the sport.

Most people coming to our classes have discovered pole dance while looking for new challenges in the field of exercise and ways to express themselves through dance. Indeed, a typical pole dancer has an athletic or a dance background, although this is by no means a necessity. The sport is fascinating because even beginners are able to do and express a lot, yet even the best of dancers still has plenty more to learn.

What many find particularly inspiring about pole dance is the way that movement and expression on the pole are not restricted by having to stand on your feet: on the pole, you move in the air while your body is supported by nearly all of your body parts in turn. Often the most attractive moves are indeed performed high up in the air with all limbs free to create beautiful lines.

Pole dance is art, just like all other art forms incorporating dance and acrobatics. It can be used to evoke emotions, tell stories and express the dancer’s inner world.

At the moment, pole dance differs from other dance genres especially in the way it enables the athletes to use an exceptional amount of creativity even in the very highest levels of competition. There’s not just one correct method of expression or atmosphere for a pole dance choreography, and in addition to combining the established basic moves, dancers have plenty of room to come up with their own unique moves. An objectively right or wrong way to pole dance simply doesn’t exist.

Sara Ikonen
President of Otanko ry

During 2018 the Student Union is celebrating the Year of Art. To celebrate, we give voice to several creative individuals or groups acting in the Aalto community. In May, it is Metal Club Mökä’s turn.

Mökä goofing around at the 2018 Sitsikilpailut contest

Metal Club Mökä is a culture and sports association acting in the Student Union’s sphere of influence, with the mission of spreading the holy message of metal music to every nook and cranny.

The Club, more affectionately known as Mökä (a Finnish word meaning “disturbing loud noise”), was born in 1998 from the crazy needs of metal fans in the teekkari community, more expressly their wish to host a metal festival at the Alvari square. The task was too grand for just one person, so the metalheads had to find more metalheads to help with the organizing. That was where it all began.

We listen to heavy music. We experience the fires of hell when in the sauna. We organize gigs for bands. We grill when the weather is right (meaning constantly). We do trips to heavy metal events. We help with the Tuska festival organizing every year. And to boot, we are active at playing floorball and football!

In August 2018, on the 4rd and 4th days the renowned Mökäfest is making a comeback.

The festival, open to everyone, celebrates the milestone of Mökä spreading the glory of heavy metal music both in Otaniemi and elsewhere for a grand total of 20 years.

The festival, held for the third time, is organized at the Täffä restaurant, with the Rantasauna hosting the afterparty. The festival offers something for everyone who enjoys heavy music, and we will see both Mökä-centered and Finland heavy culture renown bands. The confirmed bands so far are Ever Circling Wolves, Perihelion Ship, Cause of Death, Caught In The Between, Abstrakt, Asgardium, ARBALEST plays Bolt Thrower, Brymir, and Urn.

The festival combines several different purposes. In addition to being the Mökä equivalent of an annual celebration ball and acting as a meeting spot for all the academic heavy metal clubs of Finland, it is the biggest realization of the music we love, in Otaniemi. The idea of spreading metal music is to play it to the crowds. And to play it live.

Mökä has organized dozens of gigs around the metropolitan area throughout its history. Bigger is better, however, and inspired by domestic and international festivals, we wish to have one of our own! The inspiration is of course drawn from older Mökäfest events from 2013 and 2015.

While the festival is not taking place in the Alvari square, the future remains open.

How is metal music art, then? One cannot live without screeching guitars and double bass drum combos, that’s why! No other style of music has the raw strength of metal.

Metal is about raw emotion and animalistic energy. It whips people into a frenzy and unleashes the animal within. Raging around in a mosh pit and whipping your hair around releases and unravels stress.

The general mistake, however, is to think of metal as a one-dimensional” poundfest”. Metal has its fair share of virtuoso musicians, with lyrics that are as pondering and noteworthy as any other genre. The number of different subgenres in metal is truly mind-boggling. In addition to the more known subgenres of trash, death, black and power metal, the genre has had pretty much every instrument and genre mixed in at some point. Metal bands are found aplenty all around the world.

The power and diversity of metal will be proven true at the Mökäfest. See you there.

Combat Monster performing at the 2013 Mökäfest

Henrik Romppainen
Metal Club Mökä Vice Chair

During 2018 the Student Union is celebrating the Year of Art. To celebrate, we give voice to several creative individuals or groups acting in the Aalto community. During May, the women’s choir KYN has the floor.

Kuva: Maarit Kytöharju

KYN (abbreviated for Kauppakorkeakoulun Ylioppilaskunnan Naislaulajat, the Business School Student Union women singers) is a world-class choir composed of women. Helsingin Sanomat has accoladed it as” one of the brightest stars in the sky that is the Finnish choir sky”, a” trailblazer of jazz music” and” the most surprising composition of the musical year”. For 2017, KYN has won both a Grand Prix victory and a special award for amazing stage performance in Berlin, ranking as 6th best women’s choir in the world, and being chosen as Choir of the Year.

KYN is ambitious and bold, breaking boundaries and constantly developing choir music. It has created a unique and distinctive program and a whole new genre of choir music; ethnic jazz. It combines traditional melodious themes and texts of Finland with jazz rhythm and harmony.

To its members, KYN is also a family.

In addition to AYY members, women of different ages and fields of expertise sing in KYN, brought together by their love for choir music.

When KYN was chosen Choir of the Year in 2017, the grounds for the choice stated that KYN was a group of singers devoted to female choir music. It is true! Choir is life for us. Us KYN women devote ourselves into the choir for a long time, take a professional, passionate outlook on our hobby and strive to develop as singers. And of course, we aim to develop the choir further. (If you feel the same way, you might be a future KYN woman in the making).

We create music because not doing it would be incomprehensible to us. Creating music in a choir is inspired by the fact that a choir is an instrument played by its leader, where every single singer is a key or a string of the instrument. As a vocalist in a choir you get to be a part in the machine, a piece of the instrument. The feeling created by 40 women breathing, feeling and dreaming together is hard to experience anywhere else.

Another inspiring touch is the connection the singers have with the audience. Each time we sing we wish to convey an amazing experience. We’ve noticed that it is possible to truly touch a person and tell a story through choir music, even across language barriers and cultural borders. When KYN sung in Finnish during the competition in Italy, the judges declared that” they understood nothing, but understood everything”.

There are several reasons why making music in KYN inspires. To me, one of them is creating it with some of the best musicians in Finland. During my own choir career, I’ve had the privilege of performing with such professionals as Soile Isokoski, Johanna Försti and Jukka Perko.

At its very best choir music can speak to its audience, touching and affecting in several ways, crossing both thought and sense. Through it you can experience, see and understand things with more depth and detail. Art can momentarily open your experiences and understanding of all that our human life entails, in all situations in everyday life.

” Choir music is an art form, given voice by many individuals. It is powerful, alive, developing and forever renewing itself; it does not stop. A piece is new every time it is performed”, our artistic leader Kaija Viitasalo says.

Check out the video below and come to KYN concerts to experience our art!

Susanna Kantelinen
KYN Producer

P.S. Upcoming concerts:

• Sunday 3rd of June at 18:00, VocalEspoo festival opening concert, Espoo culture center, Tapiola hall
• Wednesday 6th of June at 19:00, Juurilla – ” KYN & Juurakko”, Espoo culture center, Tapiola hall

The Secretary General of the Student Union, Niko Ferm, visited Lisbon and was inspired by the local architecture. Could Otaniemi take pointers from Portuguese city design?

I’ve visited several campuses in the Nordics, elsewhere in Europe, China and America during the last few years. I can proudly state that the Otaniemi campus truly is world-class when it comes to real estate development and learning facilities.

Still, even when our campus is unique on the Finnish scale, it still feels that especially for a campus environment of architecture and art, the spaces around Otaniemi are somewhat hollow.

I’ve oft thought about the issue, for example during my trips to the Tsinghua and Tonji University campuses in China. Now I found myself musing on the same thing during my visit to beautiful Lisbon.

I think the development of the outdoor facilities and venues of our campus should focus on creativity, well-being and sustainability. I’ll share some of my thoughts on the ideas I came up with in Lisbon. The pictures mingled with the text are not meant to be copy-paste ideas on how to do things in Otaniemi, but rather depict what sparked the idea in the first place. The pictures are not from the campus areas.

Outdoor sport opportunities

Otaniemi has a good jogging path, though winter jogging is being hampered by a lack of proper lighting. Last year some outdoor training equipment poles were installed near Dipoli and the sports pitch. For a moment I felt I was satisfied with the situation.

In Lisbon, however, I noticed that each park had some sort of pole, training machine based on your own weight, or instruction board for other types of sports.

A training machine with its instructions

I also mused whether a climbing wall or a piece of art could be created on the campus. If we could have something like this installed, I believe it could be maintained by Oranki ry, operating in AYY’s sphere of influence.

Climbing meets art

Nature and pathways

There’s a lot of woods in Otaniemi, but the number of forest paths is still very small. The picture below is taken from a well-maintained garden, but something similar could easily be imagined in Otaniemi.

A path in forest

Otaniemi also lacks stairs, mostly due to the lack of steep inclines. There are places, however, where stairs could be built. I don’t know if I would plant trees on the stairs like in the picture, but I believe some stairs could spruce up the look of the campus and offer places to hang out from time to time. At the same time, we need to ensure that biking on campus continues to be easy.

A tree on stairs

Street art

Wall art, murals and art that is nicer than just spray-painted tags and squiggles; these are examples of art that we could use in Otaniemi to beautify the walls, trash cans, poles and so on.

Lisbon is filled to bursting with various kinds of paintings and graffiti. The piece in the picture below might be a bit on the crumbling side, but it tells an intensive story of the dreams and hopes of local citizens.

Street art

If you’re interested in fado, you can read more on it here.

The student union’s history as a comic

If the issue of painting the pathway tunnel next to Täffä would not cause so much controversy, I’d suggest that it be painted with a comic book style mural resembling the one in the picture below, depicting the Student Union’s history.

Thus, I propose we paint a mural like that on the wall on the side of the current AYY central office. The fact that the building was designed by Alvar Aalto might cause a few problems, though…

Street art in comic form

Pond and cafe

The Ossinlampi pond sees several swimmers each year. There is also a garden and a skate ramp with barbequing options. The plant life of the pond hardly beautifies the area, though.

The pond area has enormous potential. At the Tonji campus the students built a walking bridge across their pond as a school project, with a lounging area in the middle of the bridge.

A bridge over a pond

Walkways

A staple of Lisbon are cobbled pathways formed from very small stones which form various kinds of patterns. The patterns all have a story of some sort. For example, the wave patterns of Rossio square serve as a reminder of the tsunami that came after the Lisbon earthquake of 1755.

The special things on the streets could be something else entirely, too. For example, in Lappeenranta the organizations in the local student union paint their logos on the asphalt each year.

Portuguese pavement or calçada portuguesa

Pavilion, summer platform

Otaniemi lacks a summer stage in for organizing concerts and events during the warm days of summer and spring. The amphitheater of the candidate center could offer opportunities for this, but to my knowledge it only acts as the stage for the handing out ceremony of the teekkari caps during wappu.

Meeting spots should be all around campus. The users for them will find them if they exist. A good example is the mini terrace in front of the AYY office, which fills up with users during sunny days.

A pavilion

Many people might have good and working ideas of campus development in addition to these expressed in this blog. The important thing is to find the means to develop the area. The AYY campus section does a lot of work to develop the campus area each year, but I think that we could do with more partners to join in on the work.

An interesting option is to look to the Tonji university for innovative ideas. They have a yearly course project on campus development, kind of like a PdP course on the campus.

A classical option would be to set up a campus development fund which would finance groups, associations or projects that would develop our campus. Projects such as the Ossinlampi garden and the skating ramp have been created like this. These projects have been supported by the TTE fund.

Niko Ferm
Secretary General, Aalto University Student Union

P.S. I totally forgot to talk about statues! I propose we erect small statues in the same manner as Wroclaw has its dwarfs. The following people would be excellent statue candidates: Ossi Törrönen (whose memoirs you can read here in Finnish), Lord Moyne (who stirred the pot in the 90’s with his Amer sales deals), Jari Jokinen (the first employee of the Aalto University), Tuula Teeri (the first rector of the Aalto University) and of course Alvar Aalto, whose spirit and impact can be felt in every stone of the University and around campus.

Dear Aalto community,

an important topic arose into discussion during the” other emerging matters” item in the latest Aalto University Student Union meeting. The Council expressed concerns over whether or not the Aalto community is equal or not. After the Representative Council meeting, the issue was up for debate in the national media, when Helsingin Sanomat magazine wrote an article on the activities of the wappu magazine Julkku. (Read the Helsingin Sanomat articles in Finnish here and here).

The question of how the organizations in the Aalto University Student Union’s sphere of influence treat people of different genders deeply concerns the Aalto community and its values. The topic is extremely challenging and difficult, and the threshold to open one’s mouth about it is high.

We at the AYY central office have worked on the issue for several weeks, preparing a preliminary discussion for the upcoming Representative Council meeting. We’ve also discussed the topic with associations that gender their activities. The material for the preliminary discussion has been sent to each and every Representative Council group, which ensures that the next meeting, held on the 19th of April, should give us a clear direction which to follow to solve the issue.

This is a very heated topic. The best possible solution will be found through open and constructive discussion, where each of us has a voice and a chance to have it heard. Due to the importance of the topic, it is extremely crucial to undertake the discussion in the highest decision-making organ of AYY. At the Council, we should be able to find the best, sustainable solution for our community and upcoming Aalto generations.

The Council groups have received questions on how and when, in their opinion, should AYY act in the issue of associations that deal with applicants based on gender and on whether or not AYY should redefine its policies regarding equal activities in its association regulation.

The discussion on equality has been ongoing in the Aalto community for a long time. The topic has been on the agenda again and again during the new millennium. The latest large discussion took place in 2015 and resulted in a survey of equality in the AYY association sphere (you can download the survey, in Finnish and in PDF, from this link). The survey was completed at the end of 2016 and it showed the expressed wish that the Student Union should act to promote equality.

Nowadays, the gender of a person should not have any relevance to which community they can belong to. So, the time has come to discuss the issue. A solution will be found, rest assured, and the first step towards it is the Representative Council meeting held on Thursday, April 19th.

Everyone wishes for a safer and better community for all of us, so let us undertake this discussion fairly and with respect to one another. I trust us all being capable of that.

Noora Vänttinen
Chair of the Board, Aalto University Student Union