KID’S CORNER: Estonian-themed activities for families to try at home (part 2)

VINCENT TEETSOV

As most of us are at home these days, one place you probably spend a lot of time is in the living room. Continuing from the last edition of “Kid’s Corner”, here is another family activity to energize your home the Estonian way!

Learn the Kaerajaan Folk Dance

The Kaerajaan dance is one of Estonia’s most cherished folk dances, attributed to the area around Ahja mõis (manor house) in Põlva county in southeast Estonia. The associated song was written in 1889, to tease Jaan Matson, son of an oat (“kaer”) farmer, who was an alleged “ladies’ man.”

The Kaerajaan is an ideal way to introduce rahvatants (folk dance) to your children, or to yourself as a parent if you’ve not had the chance to do it before. It teaches fundamental rhythmic and movement principles, but it’s also active and exciting, so your kids will want to learn more dances like it. This a simplified version of the steps; both you and your children can take part at the same level of difficulty:

Start with four dancers in a cross-shape, with pairs facing each other. Everyone should keep their hands on their hips.

1) Bounce on the balls of your feet, for two consecutive beats on your left foot and then two beats on your right foot; then alternate between your left foot right foot-left foot-and right foot for four beats. That’s eight beats total.

2) Everyone claps “1-2-3-and- 4”, and puts their right hand in the middle of the circle, before turning clockwise two spaces in the circle. You should be across from where you were before. Everyone claps “1-2-3-and-4” again, before turning counter ­ clockwise.

3) Repeat step one, but instead of staying in place for the last four beats, one pair of dancers across from each other trades places with one other. After another round of step one, the next pair trades places.

4) You can continue to repeat steps one and two or steps one and three as many times as you want, until the song is over or you are sweaty and exhausted on the floor, whichever comes sooner.

Basically, every time you complete the turns of the circle, you are completing another section of the dance. You can dance the last four beats of step one in any number of ways, including:

• spinning clockwise/counterclockwise in your place

• having all four dancers step into the middle and then back out again

• you could even add a move where partners link arms and spin as they go back to their original places in the circle.

One alternative to step two is to have all participants hold hands and turn in a clockwise/ counterclockwise circle.

Who knows, maybe you can invent totally new dance sequences within the framework of the Kaerajaan dance. If you feel so inclined, you could film a short video of your family dancing the Kaerajaan (with the hashtag #kaerajaan) and share it with friends and family, to see who does it best. Look for a recording of the song online to help you get into the spirit of the dance.