Review: 100 tapaa nauraa

When you need a boost


Surprisingly often, Finnish contemporary dance (too) is gloomy in tone. Not now. This time you can laugh with permission!

100 Ways to Laugh is the name of a new performance by choreographer Jyrki Karttunen and Helsinki Dance Company, and this is exactly what it is about. Laughter lends itself to full-body dancing perfectly, and the dance also elicits laughter in the audience. No one leaves this performance with a sour face.

It is also interesting – and fun – to hear who in the audience is giggling or squirming at what kind of humour. What appealed to me the most were the adorable yellow padded dolls, some kind of middle-aged, middle-bodied, middle-bodied versions of the crash puppets of Teletapps and car commercials, who bent to tango, played wild circus-silent film slapstick, danced stump ballet and even rolled around as synchronized skaters.

And when they rushed the lovely dancer in the air in the glitter of classic Hollywood musicals in the final number, my laughter was already mixed with tears of emotion!