Collective dance in 7,000 locations on Midsummer

Finns and friends of Finland danced HulaHula worldwide on Friday night at 10 p.m. Helsinki summer time (1900 GMT). There were dancers in reportedly 7,000 locations across Finland.

Organized by Finland's national broadcasting company Yle, the event was to break a Dutch record of collective dancing in 2006, when 265,000 people danced at the same time.

While the counting of dancers continues on Saturday, Yle hoped the number could reach 300,000.

The possible Finnish record would not, however, be selected for the Guinness book of records. Such arrangement would have excluded small private events, Yle noted.

The event was one of the hallmarks of the celebrations of the centenary of Finnish independence in 1917.

The participants danced to the tune HulaHula, a popular song performed by Finnish teenager star known as Robin. A music video of the song released on Youtube in April this year has attracted more than three million viewers.

Robin himself appeared in the outdoor entertainment centre in Kalajoki, western Finland as part of the collective dance project on Friday night.

Besides pre-registered events, Yle said they would accept also unregistered entries, if a picture or video proof was accompanied.

The event was preceded by a five-hour TV and radio coverage which Yle said was its largest ever event in terms of locations connected.

There were dancers also in North and South America and Africa. In Kenya, the inhabitants of the village of Makogen, in the district of Kwale, joined in the dance.

The event was arranged on Midsummer Eve, which is a traditional time for merrymaking out in the open. At this time of the year there is hardly sunset in Finland, and in northern Finland the sun remains over the horizon.