Editing Community co-creation (section)

=Pihhiq & Drumdancing=

I was also connected to Christina Porter by the Gjoa Haven HTA, as another option for the video soundtrack. Christina is a teacher at the Gjoa Haven school and very involved with drumdancing in Gjoa Haven. Although she doesn’t dance a lot herself anymore, her daughter Aldina Porter and one of the young men we worked with a lot in town; Percy Iqualaq, do. Christina consulted us on the meaning of drumdancing and how these dances were often accompagnied with a "Pihhiq". A Pihhiq is a song that is connected to a specific well-respected hunter from the community. They are traditional songs, that describe the life or specific huntingstories of that hunter, and are sung by descendants of that hunter from memory. 

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Christina helped us gather drums, traditional drumdancing garbs and called three women that would occasionally sing together; Mary Iqiruak, Angelina Aglukkaq and Holle Porter. First we audio-recorded the Pihhiq and the drumdance inside the blue house to make sure that we would have an audiorecording of decent quality. We recorded both visual as well as audio footage of the women singing the Pihhiq song inside a canvas tent that we had set up in the blue house. As they were singing, the three women closed their eyes. After the first take, I asked them why they had done so. They commented that they could just ‘see’ the land that they were singing about when they would close their eyes, indicating a clear connection between the Pihhiq and the land they’re singing about. 

[[File:Pihhiq.jpg|thumb|Angeline and Mary singing a Pihhiq (photograph by de Wildt, 2021)]]
[[File:Holle, Angeline and Mary singing a Pihhiq (photograph by de Wildt, 2021) sm (1).jpg|thumb|Holle, Angeline and Mary singing a Pihhiq (photograph by de Wildt, 2021)]]
[[File:Percy3 (sm).jpg|thumb|Percy Ikuallaq drumdancing (photograph by de Wildt, 2021)]]

After having filmed the three women singing in the tent we drove them, Christina and the two drumdancers out to the land around the community, close to where some people have their cabins and stayed there for a couple of hours. We filmed Percy and Aldina as they were drumdancing, and the women as they were singing their Pihhiq over and over again. The women were enjoying themselves so much they were not paying attention to whether they were being filmed or not, and just continued singing as long as they enjoyed themselves. This was demonstrated by the occurrence of them ending their song and chatting amongst each other at the exact moment they emerged in the frame during a technically complicated drone shot. Mary commented, like Kathy had, after filming on the land, that it had been a very long time ago that she had been able to go out on the land, and that she had "so much fun"! More than two years later, during the evaluation of the final BearWatch workshops, she recalled how she had initially felt a little intimidated by the whole set-up of singing in the tent, but how much she had enjoyed the day of filming and how grateful she was for the opportunity to sing with the other women and the dancers out on the land.