Travel Tip: Pop Culture and Cinema in Netherlands Accordion Wrestling
Accordion Wrestling NETHERLANDS AMSTERDAM • Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam / Grote Zaal • Ongoing
It sounds like an urban myth, but wrestling and the accordion really do go back a long time. That is, in Finland they do. Between the 1920’s and the 1960’s wrestling matches were accompanied by the accordion. The accordion players were actual celebrities, named on the billboards next to the wrestlers. The reason for this was that the wrestling matches were followed by dance hall events. To attract the girls to come to such an event, one needed a proper accordion player. Kimmo Pohjonen and the wrestlers of Helsinki Nelson revive the tradition and bring it up to date in a production of physical musical theatre, featuring live music and choreographed wrestling on an electronically amplified mat.
The Finnish accordionist Kimmo Pohjonen has described himself as an ‘accordion adventurer’ who wants to raise the scope and the experience of the accordion to a higher level. He produces dramatic performances in which the sound of the accordion is combined with vocals and dramatic audio and lighting effects.
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