Riddu Riddu: An Arctic festival that moves and rocks

Their arms are like wings, their voices like seagulls‚ and they dance in ornately decorated white dresses.

A seagull flying suddenly overhead during their outdoor performance draws attention to the uncanny resemblance.

This dance, called “the Seagull,” is the signature work of Mengo, a 21-member dance and theatre troupe from Kamchatka in Russia’s Far East.

Mengo is one of many groups featured during last week’s Riddu Riddu festival in the northern Norway community of Mandalen. Saami activists started the Riddu Riddu festival 12 years ago as a way of preserving their own endangered culture.

The Saami people, who number 100,000 in Arctic Europe, 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 be of the same political importance as Norway’s Saami Parliament or the Nordic Saami Council.

Over four days and nights last week, Riddu Riddu – which means wind off the water in the Saami language — brought the sounds and sights of circumpolar peoples to its outdoor stage, magnificently framed by mountains and a nearby fiord.

“It’s an Arctic party. Here, you can experience your circumpolarity,” said Ande Somby, a performer of traditional Saami Joik music and an associate professor of law at the nearby University of Tromsø.

This year, Riddu Riddu’s musical offerings included traditional styles, such as throat-singing by Puppuq’s Maaki Putulik and Laina Grey of Nunavik, as well as heavy metal rock by Greenland’s Chilly Friday, the wild sounds of the Siberian punk and throat-singing band Yat-kha, and the Saami-jazz fusion of Ailu.

Riddu Riddu’s organizers make a special effort to reach out to other circumpolar regions and indigenous peoples. This year, Riddu Riddu organizer Henrik Olsen brought the Mengo dance troupe from Kamchatka to the festival.

Mengo highlighted the Russian peoples of that region – the Koryaks, Itelmen, Chuckhi, Evenki and Aleut — with their drumming, theatre and song. The group astounded audiences with a series of flawless performances.

“It’s unbelievable, awesome, incredible. I wish it would last all night,” said an enthusiastic member of the audience from Greenland.

In many works Mengo draws on traditional life for its inspiration – the end of a successful reindeer herding season or a seal hunt.

The buffoonery of several works, such as one about a hunter who is fooled by a canny wolverine or another about a hunter who sees his precious skins taken by a pair of seductive dancing women, resemble the exaggerated humor of Nunavut’s Pilipusi Kooneelusie.

Mengo’s members include two dancers, Tatiana Romanova and Pantiley Shmagin, who have received the highest Russian state honours in recognition of their talents.

“They performed all over the world. But since the collapse of the Soviet Union they have had to wait in Kamchatka until a foreign promoter wants to bring them out. The problem is now that no one knows about them,” said Alona Yefimenko, who introduced Mengo at Riddu Riddu.

The Koryaks, 6,600 of whom live in Kamchatka, were Riddu Riddu’s “Northern People” of 2003. They brought traditional games and food to the festival, and a Koryak lunch of boiled reindeer meat, broiled salmon and fish cakes, showed that a similar diet unites the circumpolar peoples as well.

Under intense 24-hour sunlight, activity at Riddu Riddu’s site continued around-the-clock. During the day, the sun was hot, but when the sun moved behind the mountains, temperatures dropped to just above freezing.

Thanks to the continual sea breezes and low humidity, there were few mosquitoes.

The musical performances on the main stage drew a mixed crowd that included Saami of all ages, many wearing traditional clothes. Some danced in front of the stage, while others sat comfortably on reindeer skins watching the show.

Drinking was not allowed at the Riddu Riddu site, but in the nearby camp of modern tents and tipi-like Saami lavvus, the party continued through the night.

Even before Riddu Riddu wound down, volunteer workers started to clean up – by picking up trash that was separated for composting and recycling throughout the festival.

Soon Riddu Riddu’s organizers will start thinking about next year’s festival, when they hope to draw even more participants from Canada and Alaska — so that Riddu Riddu will span the entire circumpolar region.