February 6, Saturday
17.00
Pavilion Park by Rica Arctic Hotel

Performance

Record and sound design: Ross Adams.
Music: Plaid.
Recitation: Synnøve Persen.
Scenography/ light design: Eric Mutel begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting.
Contributors: Klemet Amund Eira, Ánde Somby, Harald Gaski, joiking: Aillos.
Producer: Pikene på Broen.

Nord Rute is an Ambisonic narrative that is part folktale, part sonic documentary, part sound montage and part music performance. It is based on the poem No. 272 from the book The Sun, My Father by the renowned Saami poet, painter and musician Nils Aslak Valkeapää. The poem is about a reindeer herd on the move, and Nord Rute focuses around the annual reindeer migration of the Saami herders of Northern Norway. Sound recordings were done by artist and BBC-recorder Ross Adams who embarked on the migration with the reindeer herders from Karasjok to the summer grazing pastures in the Porsanger fjord and captured the age old event using location surround sound recording techniques. The collected sounds were constructed into a sonic narrative by Ross Adams, and augmented by the electronic synthesis of the legendary electronica-duo Plaid. The Saami poet Synnøve Persen participates with her poetic interpretation of the narrative. Who else but Synnøve can render Valkeapää´s message – in the 1970s they were called the Saami King and Queen!?

The finished production is Nord Rute, a live outdoor three dimensional sonic performance and evocation of the reindeer migration by Plaid, Ross Adams and Synnøve Persen.
Imagine an enormous labyrinth made of snow and surrounded by many load speakers with the stage in the centre. The performance starts – and you begin to wander the paths of the labyrinth: get immersed in a psycho-acoustic phenomenon and follow the reindeer migration. The sounds surround you 360 degrees, so close that you almost can feel the reindeer skin, the sharp ice breaking…

Nord Rute has premiere in Kirkenes and will be performed in London later in February this year. And an album will be released in 2010.