Chris and I had a big night out last Tuesday in the up-and-coming burg of Inglewood, which is currently experiencing the venerable urban tradition of becoming slightly more up-and-coming than it was before, having gathered for itself a sleek collection of sweet local retail outlets and one or two trendy restaurants. (Read: you should go down and have yourselves a nice walk around! But expect to pay for parking. If you can find any.) Chris and I ate at Without Papers, which is arguably the second-best pizza in town and, for two pizza-deprived northeasterners, a special treat.
I say arguably because, having had my third bite and declared it wonderful-almost-just-as-good-as-UNA-which-was-the-best-pizza-I've-had-maybe-ever, Chris pointed out that the pizza crust at UNA was slightly undercooked by about 30 seconds, that the pizza we were then eating was the appropriate amount of crispiness, and that he disagreed with my assessment. I don't remember what I said next, but I assume it's just as well I'd already had half a glass of wine at that point. The point being, we highly recommend it. Also, Indiana Jones was playing on a projector screen the whole time which was distracting but a nice complement to our anthropology-themed night.
Next, we hit Festival Hall, the Calgary Folk Festival's very own new concert venue, for a performance by Tanya Tagaq, who, accompanied by percussionist Jean Martin and cellist Cris Derksen, performed an original soundtrack they composed to accompany the film Nanook of the North. Nanook is an early film shot by Robert Flaherty to capture the life and livelihood of his Inuit "subjects" (a more appropriate term is probably co-producers, since shooting the film required a great deal of staging). Flaherty was neither an anthropologist nor a filmmaker, and the film falls short of ethnography, but it is Nanook that is often pointed to as the first example, or starting point, of ethnographic film. The new soundtrack that we saw performed was commissioned in an effort to "reclaim" the film as Native; Tagaq is a fine arts student that specializes in a version of Inuit throat-singing adapted for stage performance. She demonstrates in the video below; she's collaborated with a number of other groups, including Icelandic pop singer Bjork - if the sound is familiar, that may be why.
The concert was fantastic - the throat singing was a wonderfully foreign/mystical/earthy sound, and the composition was influenced by a 21st century classical aesthetic. Sweet, melodic sections of mostly voice and cello framed heavily rhythmic, dissonant movements that added a new emotional weight to the old film.
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