Nunavik artists are Norway-bound this summer

The sounds of Nunavik will echo down Norway’s Mandalen Fiord during the annual Riddu Riddu music festival this summer in northern Norway.

Over four days and nights in July, Riddu Riddu, which means “wind off the water” in the Saami language, will bring the best of Nunavik music, arts and culture to its outdoor stage, magnificently framed by mountains.

“All the artists are ready,” confirmed Riddu Riddu’s president Henrik Olsen, who announced the festival’s line-up last week in Norway.

Each year, Riddu Riddu makes a special effort to reach out to other circumpolar regions and indigenous peoples and spotlight artists from one particular northern, indigenous people.

More than 20 Nunavimmiut, including members of the Makivik Corp. executive, are to travel to Mandalen, located north of the city of Tromsø in northern Norway.

The festival includes a lineup of well-known Nunavik musicians, including Taima, with Elisapie Isaac and Alain Auger, Etua Snowball and his band Sinuupaa, Puppuq, and throatsingers Akinisie Sivuaraapik and Evie Mark.

“I’m really delighted to be performing again,” said Maaki Putulik of her return to the festival with her cousin, and throatsinging partner, Laina Grey. “It’s a great opportunity to exchange information about art, music and culture.”

Putulik, who is a member of the Canadian Inuit throatsinging association, urges younger throatsingers to keep up with the old tradition, because that can open up new possibilities.

“It’s a great opportunity to see the world and other cultures,” Putulik said. “It broadens your mind.”

Thanks to interest generated last summer by Nunavik throatsingers Maaki Putulik and Laina Grey, who performed as the duo Puppuq, Olsen approached Nunavik to headline the 2004 festival, with Nunavik Inuit to be the featured indigenous people of the year.

Other events for the festival, from July 14 to 18, include a cultural seminar, traditional food-tasting and fashion show, featuring designs by Nunavik Creations.

In planning this year’s festival, Olsen has worked closely with Makivik Corporation and Avataq, Nunavik’s cultural institute to organize the performances and apply for funding to help offset costs associated with the event.

Saami activists started the Riddu Riddu festival 13 years ago as a way of preserving their own endangered culture in Arctic Europe. Saami, who number 100,000, continue to struggle for political and cultural recognition in Norway, Finland, Sweden and Russia.

Some Saami now consider Riddu Riddu, which includes a film festival, Arctic Youth Camp, childrens’ program, fashion show and many other events, to have more political importance than Norway’s Saami Parliament or the Nordic Saami Council.

Isaac, whose CD Taima has sold more than 10,000 copies, will perform on stage and screen her prize-winning National Film Board Production film, If the weather permits or, in French, Si le temps le permet, at the Riddu Riddu film festival.

Also appearing at this year’s festival are well-known Saami performers, Niko Valekeap, Mari Boine, Drum Drum from Papua New Guinea, Botswana’s Naro Giraff Dancers, the group Wai from New Zealand and Nunavut’s Tanya Tagaq Gillis, who is originally from Cambridge Bay and has, in the past, performed with the Icelandic singer Bjork.

At Riddu Riddu, Gillis will perform with a Norwegian band, Origami Arktika, from Oslo, which, according to Riddu Riddu, plays “acoustic with free improvisation.”