Bronitsky and Associates Blog

August 20, 2010

Today Lois was the featured performer at the 2010 Santa Fe Indian Market Best of Show awards ceremony in Santa Fe, where she sang a traditional Inuit song about White Owl and Raven to honor all the artists who are participating in this year’s Indian Market.  Many people came up to her afterward and congratulated her on her powerful and unique musical style.

Lois also had the opportunity at last to meet Bruce Bernstein, the Director of Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA), the organization which produces Indian Market every year, and to thank him for bringing her here.  As a token of her appreciation, she gave him some unique gifts from Nunavut.

After the awards ceremony and the luncheon, we both had the opportunity to explore the plaza, which is already filled with the booths for the artists who will be selling their work over the next two days.  This is the oldest, largest and most prestigious juried show and market of traditional and contemporaryAmerican Indian arts and crafts, bringing over 100,000 visitors to Santa Fe over the weekend.  Lois will be performing for Indian Market audiences at the central stage in the middle of the plaza, right in the center of all the Market activities–it’s going to be quite an experience for Lois AND for her audience!

We visited several galleries in the city, which is the second largest art market in the US, and took a drive up scenic Canyon Road.  And Lois even found the opportunity to be photographed in the middle of a school of fish in Santa Fe, the high desert country.  Well, they were sculptured fish, but fish nonetheless!

August 19, 2010

Today was a day for relaxing and sightseeing so that Lois could continue getting used to the heat and the altitude–it’s not easy going from sea level, rain and 60 degree (F) temperatures in Arviat to a mile above sea level, sunny skies and 95 degrees.

So it was a wonderful way to show Lois some of New Mexico, beginning in Albuquerque’s Old Town, founded 1706.  The historic church, the plaza, and of course, shopping and Lois’ first New Mexican meal at the Church Street Cafe.  I must say, it’s the only meal I’ve ever had which included discussions of the merits of red versus green chile AND how to butcher a beluga whale! Then we drove on through Albuquerque’s rural North Valley–fine homes, vineyards, horses. For those of you in Arviat, after Lois comes home, ask to see her photos of the home with a fifteen-foot lizard sculptured on one outside wall–that’s definitely something you don’t see every day.

On through Sandia Pueblo and ending up at historic Coronado State Monument–the ruins of Kuaua, a large late prehistoric/early historic Pueblo Indian village which was visited by Coronado, the first European explore to come to New Mexico back in 1539.  Even as the area has developed and populations have grown, houses and stores have come in, the view of the Rio Grande River from the Monument is still largely the same view Coronado saw, with the river and cottonwood forests and mountains beyond.  It’s a visual feast, coupled with the ruins themsleves and the prehistoric mural paintings found at the site–and our visit also gave Lois the chance to try on a replica of one of the metal helmets the original Conquistadores (Spanish conquerors) wore.

Then back home for a rest and on to the Poeh Center for performance there–a full day indeed.  Tomorrow, back to Santa Fe where Lois will sing to honor all the American Indian artists participating in this year’s Indian Market.

August 18, 2010

Lois arrived this morning at 9:30 after an overnight in Winnipeg AND getting up at 3:30 this morning to catch her flight to Albuquerque–whew!  But it was great to meet her at last, after many e-mails and after touring her to Ireland and Mexico.

The heat and altitude here are taking her a while to get used to, but she enjoyed meeting Brent Michael Davids, and I had the pleasure of listening to them rehearse in my living room for this evening’s performance.

When we got to the El Rey Theater, Kathy Zimmer, the director of the theater, and I were a little apprehensive about the audience.  We had sent out mailings, gotten articles in the local papers and more but still, we didn’t know–would anyone show up.  We were delighted when more than 50 people showed up for a fascinating evening!

The evening began with a showing of the 1922 documentary classic, Nanook of the North (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanook_of_the_North).  I had never seen it, and I thought it was fascinating.  And the discussion afterwards definitely contributed to everyone’s understanding of the film.  Brent discussed the scoring of the film, I talked about the messages of the film and contrasted them with Inuit filmmaker Zacharias Kunk’s Atanarjuat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanarjuat), the first feature film in the Inuktitut language, filmmaker and historian Melissa Henry discussed some of the techniques,  and of course Lois grounded the audience’s understanding of the film with her own knowledge of the North.

The evening was topped off with her singing and drumming and a very special duet with Brent Michael Davids (http://www.brentmichaeldavids.com/), in which he used his unique crystal flute to match her singing, much as a throat singing partner would.  What an evening!

Brent Michael Davids is America’s leading Native American composer.  You can learn more about him and his work at http://www.brentmichaeldavids.com/.  We first met in Minneapolis when I toured Sami playwright Harriet Nordlund to the US and arranged for Harriet and myself to meet him for coffee.  They had a very interesting exchange of ideas, and now both are participants in IndigeNOW!  Indigenous Opera From Three Continents and Three Countries.

Brent is staying at my home for a few days and it has been a wonderful experience to get to know him better and learn more about his work and his passion for composing.  Tonight we watched a 1920s film version of Last of the Mohicans, which he scored.  It was a very exciting experience to listen to the music, especially since Brent IS Mohican and they certainly haven’t disappeared!  Afterwards we talked til in my back yard about his music and my work.  What a treat!

After much hard work on all sides, Inuit throat singer Lois Suluk Locke (Aniksak) is coming to New Mexico!  She will be performing at the historic El Rey Theater in Albuquerque (http://www.elreytheater.com/) and at the world-famous Indian Market in Santa Fe (www.swaia.org) - first Canadian ever to perform at Indian Market.

I’ve had the pleasure of touring her to Ireland and Mexico, but we’ve never met, so I’m definitely looking forward to meeting her at last, and showing her some of the beautiful places in New Mexico.

You can learn more about this outstanding performer at http://bronitskyandassociates.com/inuit.htm.  And of course I’ll be blogging the tour, so keep coming back to his blog for news and photos!

Lois Suluk-Locke and Maria Illungiayok