Erin Crouch, Author at Estonian World

Estonian choreographer Rauno Zubko helps keep folk dancing alive in America

By Erin Crouch / October 16, 2016 October 17, 2016 / 5 minutes of reading

Folk dance boot camp? Not quite, but Rauno Zubko, a renowned Estonian folk dance choreographer, has come to the US to get everyone’s toes tapping in time for the Estonian Song and Dance Festival.

Zubko, an Estonian folk dance director and choreographer, has come to Portland, Oregon, for a week to “spice up” the local dance scene among the Estonian American folk dancers. The Tulehoidjad (Torch Bearers) Estonian dance group is one of the oldest in North America, now teaching the fourth generation of Estonian families’ traditional dance. Zubko teaches both contemporary and folk dance in Estonia, and his choreographies here are meant to impress at upcoming festivals domestically and internationally.

Tell me about yourself and your work, in Estonia and in the US?

This is my second time in the US; the first time was in 2014 for the Tantsupidu (the Dance Festival). I was the age-groups assistant for Vancouver, Seattle and Portland dance groups, to help them prepare for the Laulupidu (the Song Festival). In Estonia, I’m based in Tallinn, although I’m originally from Hiiumaa (the second-largest island in Estonia).

I teach folk dance there on a regular basis but it’s not the only style I do; I’m also a contemporary dancer. I have my own folk dance society called Pääsuke. I’m the artistic director and it’s really growing right now. I also give contemporary classes in different studios and at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre. We organise the Hiiumaa Tantsufestival, a contemporary dance festival, as well.

What are your main goals for the Tulehoidjad during your time here?

My main goal is to somehow spice up [the Estonian] folk dancing popularity while I’m here. It seems to be working – I understand that since I arrived, many dancers who had not come to practice in years have now shown up. It’s really a good thing. But I also want to give them material that’s not too easy, so they can improve their technique and skill level.

I’m doing some simpler dances, but mostly quite challenging ones, so they’ll have time to work with the material. I’m going through it really fast right now and they’ll have time to work on it later. Yesterday after rehearsal I could tell everyone had really hit a wall but they are all good and very motivated.

How are dances connected to Estonian culture? Why is it important for the people here?

Estonians are a singing and dancing people. We’re lucky to have such an incredible amount of folkloric dance. It’s thanks, of course, to Anna Raudkats, who started in the 1920s to collect the dances. Dancing is really popular, both in and out of Estonia. And we even managed to preserve the folk dancing tradition during the Soviet-occupation.

How do you see dance within the Estonian diaspora in North America?

I’ve been here and in Vancouver and both of the communities are doing really well, despite how difficult it is to do the classes and get people together. Hats off to the organisers, really! I was amazed the first time I was in Portland that there are third generation fluent Estonian speakers here. I’m really glad they can hold on to it.

How do you see the role of the Estonian diaspora in the “100 Years of Estonia” celebration?

There are so many events leading up to the celebration – starting with the youth celebration in 2017 and ending with the main event in 2019, and many in between. I hope to see these groups there.

Often the singing is the only things people think of or know when they think about Estonian folk culture. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

At least they know something! Of course I wish everyone would come to see the dancing section at Laulupidu, it’s completely amazing, especially when you see it for the first time. It’s jaw-dropping.

What kind of challenges do you face in a job like this?

I never know ahead what kind of level to expect from the dancers. There are pairs with different levels and I had to select the dances to teach ahead of time, without the full information. I made a list of possible dances first, then made the final cut here, once I understood the levels. Also, Estonian dances are usually made for eight couples exactly, and the women’s dances take exactly 12 women and, of course, here we don’t have the luxury to do that! I had to select dances that you can do with different configurations.

Would you like to say a word to the readers of Estonian World?

I’d like to just encourage everyone to come and see the song and dance festivals! Folk dancing is hugely popular, even among younger people in Estonia. The celebrations (like the Song Festival), of course, contribute to the popularity, because it’s said that if you go once, you want to go every time. Estonia is very nationalistic; people are very proud of their heritage. When they put on the folk costumes and dance their own dances, people feel very proud. I’m so happy that people enjoy it.

Tulehoidjad

The Portland Tulehoidjad folk dance group was formed in 1950 to keep Estonian traditions alive and to share culture with American friends and family. In 2009 and 2014, Tulehoidjad performed in Tallinn, Estonia, at the Song and Dance Festival, and they travel and perform within the United States on a regular basis, including taking part in the annual West Coast Estonian Days.

The Portland area mother-daughter team of Lehti Merilo and Liina Teose were awarded the 2016 Outstanding Achievement Award by the Estonian American National Council for their work with Tulehoidjad. Within the group, there are mixed pairs, women’s dances and a special group for children aged 0-8.

Cover: Folk dance tradition in Estonia (photo by Katrin Winter.)

Trolls and open-source editing: the Wikimedia Conference 2015 in Tartu

By Erin Crouch / December 10, 2015 December 10, 2015 / 5 minutes of reading

An unlimited number of monkeys typing on an unlimited number of keyboards will eventually re-write the works of Shakespeare, goes the infinite monkey theorem. An untested original corollary to this theorem, newly created by the author of this piece: if a large number of people make a large number of edits to a large number of articles on Wikipedia, the world will be closer to objective truth.

Or so it’s proposed, after witnessing the true believers of Wikimedia gather in the far reaches of Estonia this fall. At the conference, which took place in the university town Tartu, the scene is tense.

Every person in the room has a laptop open, and notes are being taken in on Etherpad, an open-source platform, with links to follow-up material. Participants are reminded regularly that it is everyone’s responsibility to document what’s happening in the room, which is a small-scale echo of the Wikimedia mission itself. Wikipedians from 28 different countries sprawl on couches and hunch over their computers in vaguely uncomfortable chairs, typing furiously, as presenters rotate in a flurry of power cord adaptors.

This is the Central and Eastern European conference for Wikimedia, the umbrella organisation covering Wikipedia, Wiktionary and a host of other, lesser-known educational sites and tools. The lazy student’s indispensable crutch, the Wikipedia encyclopaedia provides definitions and information on millions of topics, in more than 280 different languages. MIT Technology magazine described the website as being run by “[a] leaderless collection of volunteers, who generally work under pseudonyms and habitually bicker with each other” – and although bald-faced arguments don’t break out here, the description seems apt. The Wiki movement is massive, with the English-language Wikipedia site alone counting 26,234,967 registered editors. There are now so many conferences, events and projects that contributors span the whole circle of life; there are several parent-child editing teams and last year, an editor passed away during the Wikimedia conference in Berlin.

The Wikimedian goal is a grand one. Information wants to be free, and Wikimedia is breaking the locks. This is particularly relevant for parts of the world previously under authoritarian governments, and this CEE meeting is the fourth of its kind, with past conferences held in Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine. The Wikimedia Estonia team seems a little nervous about the challenge of hosting, frantically re-arranging tables and hanging the router out the window for better coverage. (They plan for both regular and back-up wifi, and end up needing both.)

Rumour has it that the idea of Estonia hosting came about after a late night and a round of drinks at the last meeting, and it’s time for them to lie in the bed they’ve made. The point of these meetings are to stimulate growth for all Wikimedia projects of this region and aid in cooperation and understanding of individual projects. People are here to talk about what they’re doing in their own countries and share solutions; everything from bots that find dead links to “country of the month” contests are open game here. Estonia, as it happens, is a stand-out, and the team has plenty to share.

Wikimedia Eesti is a registered Estonian non-profit, founded in July of 2010. Trainers, an executive director and other staff in Tartu, both paid and unpaid, run their projects, which span from digitalizing Estonian literature to a cutting-edge project on Wikipedia in universities. The executive director, Kaarel Vaidla, spends his time outside Wikipedia on his farm and training guide dogs; during one memorable evening of this conference, he appears in full Estonian folk dress to play the accordion and coach fellow Wikipedians on traditional dance, assisted by shots of Polish vodka.

Unlike Vaidla’s outfit, the projects the Estonian team does are far from traditional. Since 2010, students at the University of Tartu can receive credit for contributing to Wikipedia, through structured courses in the Science and Technology and Mathematics and Computer Science Faculties, and these student articles have been viewed over 1.7 million times since their creation. Ivo Kruusamägi from Wikipedia Estonia is open about the goal of trying to use the collaboration as a way to preserve the Estonian language; with only around a million speakers, every opportunity counts. Wikipedia Estonia sees this as a win-win situation, advancing the Estonian language and open information together. The crowd listens attentively as Kruusamägi outlines the partnership with the educational institutions, then brainstorms applicability for their own countries.

It’s not all sunshine and roses in the cooperation and collaboration world, though. The topic of vandals and trolls comes up in nearly every session at the CEE meeting. Making non-constructive edits, even unintentionally, is vandalism; doing it on purpose to provoke others is trolling, and both of these are rife in every country of the world, it seems. “Biting the newbies,” or harshly censoring new contributors who don’t understand how Wikipedia operates, is also a problem. (The English-language Wikipedia behaviour guideline specifically forbids calling newbies disparaging names such as “sockpuppet” or “meatpuppet” and advises gentle correction by editors instead.)

The tone of the CEE conference face-to-face, however, remains friendly. Calls of “Citation needed!” jokingly heckle any presenter who brags, but since nearly every presenter is also a participant, turnabout is fair play. Topics like the gender gap and implicit bias are addressed directly, and even the uneasy relationship between the US Wiki Foundation, the 800-pound gorilla of the Wikimedia world, and the communities in the other countries is discussed.

The fresh air and open views of Voore are the perfect backdrop, and for once, the Estonian weather cooperates. On the day, when the participants and presenters alike pack up to return to Tartu and their flights home, the Wikimedians are ready to resume their incremental edits to information domination. Estonia has once again been able to leverage its innovation and set an example in the world’s largest information source, and the traditional costumes can be put away until next year.

Cover: Tartu skyline (photo by Gen Vagula). Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2015 took place on 11-13 September near Tartu, Estonia.

Erin Crouch