Inuit from Nunavut share culture at drum dancing festival in Greenland

The voices of Inuit singers and drummers soared by way of the Katuaq cultural centre in Nuuk, Greenland, final month — generally dissolving into laughter, generally ringing out with harmonies.

For days, the Katuarpalaaq drum dancing pageant introduced performers from Alaska, Canada and Greenland collectively to share their very own methods of dancing and singing.

“We all the time have rather a lot in widespread with one another, and we all the time lookup to one another,” mentioned Sylvia Cloutier, a drum dancer from Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, who spent a long time dwelling in Iqaluit.

“Generally we really feel like there’s only a few of us cultural performers, however after we get collectively in this type of an occasion, we all know that we’re many and we’re supported and appreciated.”

The primary a part of the pageant ran from March 21 to 25, earlier than persevering with till April 6 in 4 different Greenland communities. Cloutier was one in every of a number of individuals from Nunavut who carried out.

Arnakkuluk Kleist, the CEO of the Katuaq cultural centre and the organizer of the pageant, mentioned the planning for the pageant began again in 2019, although the pageant itself acquired delayed as a result of COVID-19 pandemic.

“It was imagined to occur earlier than, however I assume this was the suitable time to do it — the climate is ideal and folks have arrived, and it is simply great,” she mentioned.

“It isn’t usually we come collectively, and it’s important for us. It is necessary for drum dancers … but in addition for the inhabitants of Greenland to get the prospect to find and rediscover drum dances.”

Kleist mentioned the aim of the pageant was to maintain drum dancing as a part of Inuit tradition and “put new power in [it].”

“I hope that this will likely be a chance for individuals to get extra data about drum dancing. It will likely be a chance perhaps for extra individuals to select up the drum and begin drum dancing,” she mentioned.

Sandi Vincent, who lives in Iqaluit, mentioned she first started studying drum dance from Cloutier when she was 15. They ready a 15-minute present for the pageant with drums and throat singing.

“I believe by sharing drum dancing, it offers Inuit a way of identification, a way of self [and] a way of connection to tradition,” she mentioned.

“Everyone is on a special studying path and completely different place of their life with language or tradition… and it is necessary to share our pleasure as Inuit and share our language, and share our songs, as a result of we’re happy with them.”

‘It is such an attractive factor’

Jerry Laisa, a drum dancer from Pangnirtung, Nunavut, mentioned he nonetheless thinks about how Inuit have been as soon as informed to not drum dance.

That little concern continues to be at the back of his thoughts, however drum dancing and singing join him to his identification and roots.

“I really like the tales behind this stuff — the traditional phrases that include these songs,” he mentioned.

“The best way you utilize your voice in historical songs, solely if you’re virtually out of breath is the place the sentence [finishes], and that is how you already know. After which it begins to inform a narrative of journey, of animals, of sound. It is such an attractive factor.”

Laisa, 26, has been drum dancing since he was in his teenagers. The songs educate him how a lot issues have modified in Inuit communities.

“As we transfer from place to put, we alter slightly bit. Our data modifications slightly bit, too — since our historical past is generally oral,” he mentioned.

“Solely by listening to those songs from different individuals, you get a way of the way it was like. You hear songs of sorrow, of starvation, and singing these songs, it offers you a way of identification.”

Exchanging tradition

That sense of identification is a part of why Keenan Carpenter drum dances as nicely. Carpenter, who just lately moved to Iqaluit from Sachs Harbour within the N.W.T., mentioned it is also necessary as a result of it’s an outlet for emotion.

It makes him really feel “glad from the core,” he mentioned.

Sharing that a part of his tradition with Inuit from different areas of the North has additionally let him study in regards to the variations and similarities in how Inuit from Greenland or Alaska make drums and play them.

Carpenter recollects watching his sister drum dance and have enjoyable when he was 11. That is what acquired him initially, together with slightly optimistic motivation from his mom — “I used to be shy, however she bribed me to do a very good factor,” he recalled.

In Nuuk, Carpenter mentioned he is loved performing inside a cultural centre designed for arts like drum dancing. He’d wish to see one thing comparable in-built Nunavut.

“We do want a cultural centre [for] individuals to go and be themselves,” he mentioned. “A secure area to go and categorical your self, to create and to be an individual — to be proud to be Inuit, to be proud to be Inuvialuit, to be proud whoever you’re.”

Vincent and Cloutier each agree. Cloutier recalled the time she spent in Iqaluit, consistently looking for locations the place individuals may practise or carry out reveals, whether or not it’s a college fitness center or the cadet corridor.

“We aspire to having that in Nunavut. We now have a lot expertise and a lot creativity in Iqaluit, in Nunavut, however we’re the one territory that does not have a cultural home or performing area,” Cloutier mentioned.

“We glance as much as Katuaq and what they’ve finished. We additionally look as much as Greenland, the individuals right here and the way they’ve unimaginable infrastructure to advertise tradition and simply reside by way of all of the artwork that exists right here.”