Endemol Shine Finland: Dance Brothers combine dance and music

Dance Brothers tells the story of two brothers on their way to their dream of becoming professional dancers. Music plays a big role in the series as part of the storytelling and that’s why production wanted to invest in it.

“Music is definitely something that leaves a mark and people connect to. Music increases the production value, i.e. it makes Finnish productions look and sound more valuable,” says Max Malka, creator and producer of the series, from production company Endemol Shine Finland.

Once the funding was secured, Malka felt it was important to have a person involved in the production who could focus solely on the music. So a music supervisor was hired, who was involved in thinking about what Dance Brothers would sound like and taking care of the necessary music licensing.

“I’ve had the pleasure of being involved in choosing the songs for the series and bringing my own musical expertise to the table,” says Ida Karimaa, who was the music supervisor for the series.

The production process involved considering not only what Dance Brothers would sound like, but also the variety and diversity of the musical choices. The song choices were made to ensure that they supported the idea of what Finnishness looks and sounds like today.

“I really appreciated the fact that Ida brought up diversity and variety in the discussions about the music choices and challenged us to look for a variety of different songs,” says Malka.

Dance Brothers used a lot of domestic music, both a score composed for the series and existing songs. At its best, a song can gain international acclaim and listeners around the world.

“We are very happy that Finnish artists have contributed their own works as part of the new work, our series. We hope that more productions and collaborations of this kind can continue to be made in Finland,” say Malka and Karimaa.

Working with Gramex was easy, according to Karimaa.

“For some songs, it was slow to reach the rights holders, but for those domestic songs where it was possible to obtain the rights directly from Gramex, the online store made the process much easier.”