Community co-creation
Here I share the filming of kathy and Janet
Throatsinging
Soon we were pointed towards Janet Aglukkaq, who had been taught the technique of throatsinging by her mom? and continues to teach others by practice. I met up with Janet and her friend Kathy Okpik, at Kathy’s house to record and film their singing. The choice to film this, rather than only audio-record it, was initially a strategic one; filming would mean additional video content that could support a media campaign around the Voices of Thunder film, in the case the HTO would want to set up such a campaign. Very quickly however, it became clear that filming would also be a fun thing to do. Fun being a valuable purpose in its own right - reference. Turning the recording of their throatsinging into a music video allowed us to get creative in coming up with a little storyline. Only having a couple of hours available that day to finish the filming, we decided on a very simple story-arch of two friends visiting each other and throatsinging together. We staged some shots of how they would meet, even if they were not being filmed; Kathy making coffee, Janet entering the house, and the friends greeting each other. They start singing. As they get immersed in the singing, they close their eyes. The camera zooms in, as the frame fades into a white-out and reappears as the two of them being transported out on to the land surrounding Gjoa Haven, while they are still singing. The video suggests that this is something that happens in their own minds, rather than physically since there is no transition scene of them leaving their house to travel outside of the community. However to shoot the scene of them throatsinging outside, we of course had to travel outside of the community, which caused considerable excitement for both women and Serge, Kathy’s younger brother, who joined us. It was through our conversations between filming and driving outside the community to find a good location to film the second part of the video, that I learnt that many community members would actually not have the means, or resources (like vehicles or money) to go outside of the hamlet on to the land. Shooting this video actually provided an opportunity to be out on the land and practice the tradition of throatsinging. Something that, even though it took us only 15 minutes to drive up to the road where we were filming, can be seen as a privilege that is not accessible to anyone.