Sami me — Sami you

06 February 2010, Kirkenes, Barents Spektakel 2010

The Transborder Café took place on the Sami People`s Day and focuses on the Saami issues. The indigenous cultures are sustainable, but threatened by the development of the modern society.

Festival news:
Synnøve Persen (Bevkop), Ross Adams, Ed Handley (London) and Eric Mutel (Helsinki) about the performance Nord Rute: from reindeer migration across Finnmark to a music-based crossover-artproject.

Bjarne Store-Jakobsen, Chairman for the Working Group of the Indigenous Peoples in the Barents Region (WGIP), presents hot news from the Barents Indigenous Peoples´ Congress 2010 and the conference ”Co-existence in the Arctic”, that took place in Feb 4 – 5 within Barents Spektakel.

The Catalyst
Project–performance
Artist Yvette Brackman (Copenhagen): new stories about her involvement in the Russian Saami village Lovozero.
Brackman began her project «The Catalyst» in Lovozero on the Kola Peninsula, north-west Russia, in spring 2006. She initiated contact between the local craftspeople in Lovozero and the Spanish shoe company Camper, with the idea to apply a successful cooperation practice Camper established with the Mallorca craftsmen. What is the result of such a contact – for Camper, for the local population in Lovozero and for the artist? Can this project contribute to the future of Lovozero?
As a result of her involvement and research, Yvette Brackman has written the play ”The Catalyst” that reveals the issues of communication between the global shoe company and the local craftsmen, copyright issues, etc. The attending audience is invited to act the play by reading their respective roles.

Poetic Landscape of Feelings and Thoughts
Synnøve Persen
Poet and visual artist Synnøve Persen (Bevkop, Finnmark) reads her own poems. Persen’s poetic language originates in the nature of the Saamiland. Her cultural background permeates her poetry. Through the poems, she links the tradition of joiking to literature and visual arts, bringing these three forms of expression together. The deep sincerity of Synnøve Persen´s poetry with her distinguished reciting manner will fully captivate you.

Word/play – the Sound of Dead Languages
Artist and musician Espen Sommer Eide (Bergen) shares his reflections about dying languages using the Scolt Saami language as an example. UNESCO says that half of the world´s 6000 languages today are on the verge of extinction. They say, about one language will die every tenth day in the nearest future. The first languages subject to dying are those spoken by the indigenous people, for instance, the Saami language in its many different varieties. Join us for a research experiment: how will people in the future look back at the words of the dead languages? How does a dead word sound? Compared with the sound of words that are still alive? Has anything been lost?

The Moai duo is inspired by the Saami joik and age old music traditions from the North Calotte. Berit Alette Mienna from Karasjok, Finnmark (vocal and drums) is from the family who still uses the old joik traditions. Øystein Hanssen from Balsfjord, Troms, plays flute and other blow instruments that he makes of bones, animal horns, etc. Story-telling about the music pieces and instruments is an important part of their performances.