What a Champions League player must be

By: Pedro Girao, ESN Coimbra Communication manager


You are entering the field hearing the Champions League hymn. The fans sing “You will never walk alone” to support your team. Looking around you can find two or three people with posters asking you to give them your t-shirt… what a great ambience in this Champions League match!

The match starts and you badly realize that your dream came true: you are now playing the Champions League. You have a team who will fight from the first until the last minute to win the championship!
Well, it’s better to stop dreaming… let me be honest with you: it will not happen during your Erasmus Champions League in Coimbra. There won’t be millions of fans supporting you nor posters asking for your t-shirt. But once you are there you will understand that you already have a team, a group of people who will do the best to enjoy this Champions League from the first match til the final victory!

You will probably understand that some of the players you have on your team would be more successful as singers or dancers than they are as football players – and they don’t even know how to sing or to dance! You can even find that it will be impossible to win the tournament with such a bad group of players …
At the end of the tournament you can have lost all the matches… but you will want to have a team dinner and, which is more, you will have a new group of friends.

And suddenly you realize that all those football players – the good and the bad ones – are already your team. And that they will be there until the end of your Erasmus in Coimbra. 
Ah… do you know your fat goalkeeper? Well… he won’t save any goal during the tournament but he will be the best guy drinking beer, wine and shots. He will be THE MAN in your team-dinner, in your first hang out together and during the ESN parties!
Yes, there will only be one team winning the tournament. But at least you will be able to say, when you come back home, that you have played the Champions League at least once! And that you’ve played with the only (fat) goalkeeper that have never failed a penalty in Coimbra!

Join the Erasmus Champions League here: https://www.facebook.com/events/429277457202762/?fref=ts 

The Story of the Dancing Human

 By sven paulus

“Without music, life would be a mistake.” Friedrich Nietzsche

 

Some of them say that our world is made of sounds. Various melodies playing along, across and between each other, all in the rhythm of chaotic harmony. Well, looking from the perspective of Dancing Human it seems to be more than true.

It all starts about three decades years ago in a small country which hides itself behind the acronym ENSV. Dancing Human as a kid just loves listening the radio, but mostly there is Soviet estrada: middle-aged ladies and gentlemen singing bit cheesy tunes about love and life. During the weekends viewer can see from the telly how Red Army veterans are letting their voices to be heard, praising the might of their homeland. All too boring, isn't it? And then...

Suddenly radio starts to play totally different music, where melodies are carried on by ethereal keyboard sounds. It's so out from this grey world, where almost everybody is dressed in a sort of uniform and conformity is the key element holding society together. Floating synthesizer tunes are reminding to a boy that there is something more true about his dreams than this pale reality, where propaganda and ideologies are making their ways into sheeple heads.

Step by step the Dancing Human fells deeply in love with these messengers from the Other Worlds: Jean-Michel Jarre, Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder and the local keyboard hero Sven Grünberg, whose pieces of true sound art are decorating ENSV animations. These melodies are like shelter allowing to take on the adventures on unknown territories. Machine music listened during the night in a small and dark kitchen. It gives food for the sense of beauty and longing for the Other Worlds – behind star clusters, galaxies and infinite number of universes grows yet deeper. Music as the precious key to unlock the imagination.

Few years later things and situations have changed. Huge empire has collapsed like many others before. And for the times to come: how many of those glorious regimes will end in dust... Just because people will stop beliving. Old idols are taken off from the statues and new symbols will find their path into collective conciousness. Fresh winds blowing from the west bring along totally new culture which has been hiding itself behind imaginary border.

Hunger for the new lifestyles, where everyone can fashionably be „different/same“ turns citizens quickly into bunch of apes. Common values also change, foreign stuff is always good and right, while old is really, really bad. Quickly young independence becomes a monstrous jungle, where one has to trust instincts and intellect in order to survive. Ordinary people and even cops are killed on the streets weekly, mafia gangs are at war, politicians and businessmen start to make profit from anything and it all seems to be irrelevant enough to be taken too seriously. Dancing Human dives to the books and music.

In 1993 Estonian Radio launches new channel: Raadio 2. This station is aimed for the young listeners and whole generation is willing to lend their ears and mind to novelty. Suddenly these kids have access to the whole mosaic of different subcultures they previously had no idea about. Yeah, censorship is gone and punk, dancehall or trash metal are accepted in the playlists. Among this soup of styles Dancing Human finds a marvellous haven in the electronic dance music introduced by Raul Saaremets, Koit Raudsepp and others.

Long evenings in the same small kitchen become therefore enjoyable dancing nights, where one surrenders the body to the rhythm and the beat. Dance like nobody is watching. And well, actually nobody is watching. Instead – youth is keen on watching music videos like Prodigy No Good (Start the Dance) and these pieces of information feel like opening the gate into the vast realm of totally alternative life with the only purpose to dance and celebrate the joy of being alive. There are rumours and soon already facts that special parties are organized where one can feel totally different vibe and express their humanity through the dance.

Soon enough R2 starts to give out free tickets to rave parties, some of them taking place in abandoned warehouses and factories just in the middle of the capital. These are Temporary Autonomous Zones AKA as anarchy at its best. On one warm september night Dancing Human steps up from the stairs, opens the door and there it is: a dream come true...

It is huge factory hall filled with open minded people, massive sound system which makes one's stomach vibrate with the bass and all this is lighted up by crazily blinking stroboscopes. For a second stops while eternity pours in and takes over. DJ as the music shaman conciously leading commonly experienced extatic ritual journey of sounds. All too surreal and dreamy, yet reminding that Prodigy video. The vibe is the same: Peace, Love, Unity and Respect or PLUR. For the Dancing Human it is finally reaching back to ancient home, it is revival of archaic and the whole awakened family of humankind is celebrating it through the music and dance.

At the same night Dancing Human notices this very special guy wearing Prodigy picture on his light blue denim jacket. 

Minutes later they become best friends and ten years later Dancing Human is proud uncle for his friend's and sister's twins. No fate, no coincidence – just pure flow of music bringing people together and filling the gaps.

As the electronic music scene grows bigger and reaches for new dedicated fans some fractions find their way to real underground. In a literal sense. Parties are held in old cellar from 9 PM til 12 AM and this is tribal event. Young boys playing house, jungle, trance, gabber and techno in the middle of Tallinn Old Town, few steps away from tourists attractions. Few beers, few tokes, few small-talks and there is nothing else one needs to dance the night away. Each and every one is out there because of music and therefore shared pleasure is surely bigger.

Mental borders are opened and suddenly Estonian scene is flooded by top-notch artists like E-Z Rollers, Spring Heel Jack, Gilles Peterson, DJ Hype, Basement Jaxx, Idjut Boys and damn - even Goldie himself. This means all the best playas from the world. Dancing Human realizes the power of commitment to the music when 18-years old demigod Ed Rush is spinning his creation from the vinyls. Being seduced by the beauty of bass-lines and fiercely stepping drums. Dance it. Go let it out. Express yourself, you crazy monkey! Enjoy that freedom on a party where humankind is exactly like one dreamed: happy, helpful, open-hearted and everybody is equally free to love & to be loved.

We can not know where Dancing Human is coming from or what will be the next event, but we do know it is wise to dance along while the music is playing. 

Please check out Babel Radio Show about Estonian electronic music!

Babel Radio Show about Estonian electronic music by Babel_Ruc on Mixcloud