Every year, the Night Theatre at Kaustinen Arena is an equally amazing phenomenon: hundreds of people fill the circular stage to the brim. At the last minute, they look for a mate: there must be a couple in the catrill and a counterpart in the opposite row. At the back of the stage is Mr. Night Catarrill, Antti Savilampi puts on a sweatband and a cheek microphone and starts to sweat. The band JPP takes to the stage. There are plenty of spectators in the stands, thinking that maybe I'll join them next year: they say you can learn there even if you don't know how.
Then Antti orders the chaos into order, straightens the lines and teaches the shifts: responsibility and back, change of places girl first, handshakes, gates, candy, crosses and what have you. The music starts in a familiar way and the patterns start to move according to the commands shouted by Antti. It doesn't always go exactly right, but the main thing is to have fun. The pace picks up towards the end and after at least half an hour of non-stop dancing, the whole large group of dancers forms a braid and a circle and finally the players are thanked with a huge shout and a rush towards them.
This is how it has been in Kaustinen for 36 years.
- The first auction catamaran was pulled at the festival in 1982, Antti remembers. We had held a week-long course in katrilla, at the end of which we performed at the opening of the festival and then informally again in the evening.
- By the way, the credit for the original idea of the exclamation point goes to Emeritus Professor Heikki Laitise, who was then head of the Folk Music Institute," says Savilampi, who was awarded the title of Master Dancer a few years ago.
Antti has been giving courses, running dance soups and hosting folk dance concerts in Kaustinen every summer since 1978. Five years earlier, in 1973, the young dancer had already performed in Kaustinen with Iso Ilo from Oulunsalo. Antti's dancing career began in Oulu in the mid-1960s, when a young man studying to become a woodwork teacher at a vocational school applied for a job as a dancer in the Oulu dance club. Elsi Niinimaan to the tanhupir. Later, the path led to the Finnish Youth College in Mikkeli, from which Savilampi graduated in 1973. He had a career as a folk dance instructor in the Finnish Youth Federation, so it was only natural that Antti also became a course instructor in Kaustinen.
- The week in Kaustinen is traditionally lived on short nights, Antti admits. In addition to teaching, plotting and the actual programme, you just can't afford to miss the evening snacks, busking and meeting friends.
- One night I remember going without sleep until seven in the morning. In the morning there were great jams and the crowd got excited about dancing. A few Romani women with long skirts joined in and it so happened that in the heat of the dance the fold of my skirt got so tight around my finger that my fingernail came off, Antti laughs.
The Night Catarrh came and stayed in the Kaustinen programme at the request of the public. Antti pulls and JPP pushes, as the saying goes.
- Now, after 36 years, it's time to hand over the reins to a successor, who is already in the pipeline, says Antti with good humour.
- You will see him at this year's Nightfall on Thursday 12 July at midnight, he is my opposite number in the picture, Savilampi reveals.
Photo / Antti Savilampi and the Night Catrilla crew at the closing ceremony. Photo by Krista Järvelä.
Festival people 1/6
For the Festival People series Merja Lahti interviewed a few people, each with their own history and perspective on the Kaustinen Folk Music Festival. The series introduces more or less familiar characters that you have met and will meet over the years in Kaustinen.