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An interesting collaboration between Create, the national development agency for collaborative arts, and the Irish Travellers Movement, sees Saami theatre maker and musician Åsa Simma come to Dublin for a public lecture on 'Performing Culture'.
The Saami (Sámi) people are the indigenous people of northern Europe, inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of northern Sweden, Norway, Finland and the Kola Peninsula of Russia. (There are in Norway approximately 60,000-100,000; in Sweden, 15,000-25,000; in Finland, 6,400; and in Russia, 2,000.) Their traditional languages are the Saami languages. The best known Saami livelihood is semi-nomadic reindeer herding, with which about 10% of the Sámi are today involved.
Åsa Simma is Artistic Director for Saami Theatre. Her work as an actress, singer and director serves as a medium to bring Saami culture to the wider world. Åsa’s approach to performance is to combine the traditions of her culture with her theatre training and modern media. The content of her work deals with both the day-to-day and the spiritual. She is particularly concerned with how Saami women, “as important bearers of culture within the Saami world, can reach out and receive essential support from Swedish society as a whole.” Åsa will be in conversation with Catherine Joyce, Chair of the Irish Traveller Movement. The event is at 7pm on June 17 at Sean O Casey Community Centre, St Mary’s Road, East Wall, Dublin. The event is free to all but places need to be booked, via email to communications@create-ireland.ie or telephone, 01- 4736600. Asa on Saami culture: “When I was brought up, Saami people were not respected. Our language and traditions were made fun of. So for me it doubled the disappointment I had to carry. When I was brought up, our traditional singing was not heard, our Yoiks were not heard because that was a time of oppression. Everything Saami was blaah. It didn’t sound like anything. It sounded like something boring and monotonous. My mother taught me the songs in secrecy and she told me not to tell anybody I was learning these songs, because it would put me into trouble. And then, while I was brought up the sort of Saami culture Renaissance was just starting in the seventies. When I was nine years old, a Saami artist, who had meant very much for me, heard that I was singing the traditional songs. So he took me on a tour, when I was nine years old, among them to inspire the Saami people not to forget the songs. We were many children and lots of old people. We traveled together one summer. For me it was of big importance, because I learned so much about the singing tradition. Not only how to do it, but the whole philosophy behind it. I think the fact is when we look at the western way of conceiving a piece of music; somebody sits down and composes music, writes it down, then puts his little signature on it: “This is mine! I did it!” But we did the Yoik tradition and the most beautiful thing in our singing tradition is that it is totally the opposite.” You can hear Asa singing here. That is the track 'Shaman's Journey', which can also be found here. There is a Guardian article on yoik traditional music here. Create's arts audio site, Create Exchange, is here.
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