September 21, 2001

Inuit throat-singers want official voice

The seeds of an advocacy groups for Inuit throat-singers began to germinate in Puvirnituq last week.

ALISON BLACKDUCK
Nunatsiaq News

PUVIRNITUQ — Inuit throat-singers now have the beginnings of an advocacy group that may eventually book their gigs, ensure their art is taught in schools, and protect their intellectual property.

Throat-singers at last week’s Inuit Throat-Singers’ Gathering in Puvirnituq elected 10 of their peers to the group.

Elders Mary Sivuarapik of Puvirnituq, Rynie Audla of Sanikiluaq and Susanne Singoorie of Pond Inlet were picked to advise them.

The group’s first task is to decide how they’ll work together.

“Is this going to be a political entity with a president and board members?” asked Rhoda Kokiapik, the executive director of Nunavik’s Avataq Cultural Institute. “We have obstacles — that’s why we only came up with a working group.”

Kokiapik says specific laws bind each type of legal affiliation — from associations to unions. She says the working group has one year to decide which type of affiliation best suits the aspirations of throat-singers.

In a number of workshops held throughout the week, participants discussed what they needed — as performers, teachers and students — to promote and protect their art.

Avataq employees facilitated those discussions in a series of workshops.

In one such workshop, money and management were the main topics.

Throat-singer Evie Mark, 26, of Ivujivik, says she needs an agent to manage her performing career.

“It’s hard to be your own agent,” Mark said. “There’s bios, agreements, passports, CVs, phone calls, faxing, e-mails. It takes a lot of time.”

Mark says keeping track of those mundane but necessary tasks sometimes overwhelms her, since she works full-time at another job.

And she says basic administration is expensive. For example, she says coordinating and negotiating performances with promoters over the telephone can cost her $30 per call.

“Say you make $2,000, the agent gets 15 per cent,” she told the six other throat-singers in the workshop.

Throat-singers also agreed in the workshops that:
• Throat-singing and throat-songs must be included in the curricula of elementary and secondary schools in Nunavut and Nunavik;
• Throat-singing teachers should travel throughout the North to teach, and should be paid for their services;
• Throat-singers need set rates of payment for performances and recording sessions, and the payments should be based on criteria such as the performer’s skill, the length of the performance, and the venue;
• Throat-singers need a professional directory that includes contact information, short biographical sketches and availability;
• Throat-singers must start archiving their throat-songs in a database that would be accessible to the public but overseen by their association, and
• Their association shouldn’t duplicate services already available in Nunavut, Nunavik and the Northwest Territories.

Robbie Watt, the chair of the gathering, compiled those suggestions along with others offered by the participants.

Kokiapik says Watt will draft a list of mandates based on participants’ suggestions to the working group. The working group will then have one year to fulfill those mandates.

Watt — a former president of Avataq and one of only a few men who throat-sing — says Avataq will oversee the working group.

He says Avataq’s strong presence may be a problem for throat-singers living outside of Nunavik, but since there is no similar cultural institute in Nunavut or the NWT, it’s the only option available for now.

However, none of the throat-singers at the gathering objected to Avataq’s role as an interim overseer. They agreed that Avataq’s principles match those of the new working group.

Avataq organized the five-day event, which 66 throat-singers from Nunavut and Nunavik attended.

Throat-singers from Igloolik, Coral Harbour and Tasiujaq planned to attend, but bad weather kept them at home.

“We invited Tanya Gillis from Cambridge Bay, but she’s on tour with Bjork, and an elder from Cape Dorset cancelled because of her health,” said Karin Kettler, a throat-singer elected to the working group.

Heightened airport security after last week’s terrorist attacks in the U.S. also caused travel delays for some throat-singers. The attacks themselves cast a subtle shadow over the gathering, which organizers hoped would be a joyful event.

By Thursday night, most people at the gathering were complaining of fatigue and saying they felt overwhelmed by the enormity of the week’s tragic events.

However, the throat-singers say they’d like Avataq to host another gathering next year.