大象传媒

Andrew McGibbon explores the poetry, song and yoiking of the indigenous S谩mi people who live across the Western European Arctic - a region including Russia's Kola Peninsula, Norway, Finland and Sweden.聽

The relationship between the traditional epic yoik songs and contemporary poetry is explored, along with the multimedia approach that several contemporary S谩mi poets and artists choose for their creative expression. The yoik is the distinctive form of cultural expression for the S谩mi people and comparable to the traditional聽chanting聽of some聽First Nations in the Northern American continent.

The United Nations has designated 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages, and the programme features Mikkal Morottaja, aka Amoc, a poet who raps in Inari S谩mi - a language spoken by fewer than 300 people聽in the world. He raps about Father Christmas being overwhelmed with selfish Christmas demands. Anna Morottaja聽is a traditional Inari S谩mi "livde" singer, who can sing northern bird imitations and stories of mischievous birds of prey, while 脕nn谩m谩ret聽tells stories from her family background as a reindeer herder using the traditional yoik, through poetry and through music.

S谩mi poetry takes tradition seriously, looking back to find the way forward, and giving a group of people in the Arctic north a voice.

This is the second of three programmes and, as with the rest of The Dying of the Ice series, features the sounds of melting and retreating ice in the Arctic along with the sounds of creatures living under the ice as an active, low volume soundtrack audible throughout the programme.

Written and Presented by Andrew McGibbon
Producers: Louise Morris and Nick Romero

A Curtains For Radio production for 大象传媒 Radio 4