On stage in a former industrial building in the Norwegian city of Bergen sits a strange, if not bewildering, selection of objects. There is an upright, warp-weighted loom, one of the most ancient and basic forms of human technology, with a weaving in progress on its frame. There is a kettle, a heating element, and an old-fashioned hand-cranked coffee grinder. There is something that looks like a miniature upside-down table – in fact it is a warping board, the structure on which the vertical threads of a future textile are organised before being fitted to the loom. The only real hint that this is the prelude to a concert is the presence of a looper and some microphones, abrupt visitors from the 21st century.
This is the set-up for a new work by composer Elina Waage Mikalsen, artist-in-residence and co-programmer of Borealis. Well-established as an annual festival exploring the outer reaches of music and sound, this year’s event has been focused, for the first time, on experimental music made by Sámi artists – creators from Europe’s only Indigenous nation, Sápmi, which spans the modern borders of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia’s Kola peninsula. It is not just a first for the festival. The event also represents the first formal gathering of Sámi experimental musicians: a chance to consider how endangered traditional forms of cultural expression can be enriched and renewed – or, possibly, diluted and imperilled – by innovation.
