From collection Kosti Ruohomaa Collection
Square Dancing 6
This images shows the instructor swinging with a partner while the rest of the dancers stand by, leaving a space in the cramped room for the next moves of the dance.
The scene is probably a beginners' lesson in a local rural community. The photographer focusses not on the best dancers or the smoothest scenes; here we see the struggle and the process of learning, and the sometimes awkward and unfamiliar proximity of neighbors and strangers. In this improvised dance hall Kosti finds his preferred subject matter: the folkways of ordinary people at work and as here, at play.
