Another Sami (2013 – )

Join us in Gamvik, an old Sami fishing village on the far coast of Finnmark. For thousands of years, the Sami people here have lived well off the sea. But in just under 100 years, the Sami language and culture almost completely disappeared from this place. How did this happen?

In this performance, Håkon Mathias Vassvik takes you into the history of the place he comes from. When he grew up here in the 80s, he was told that he was Norwegian and that almost no one there was Sami. But the older he got, the more the stories changed.

He is joined on stage by Torgeir Vassvik and Kari Rønnekleiv. With drums, joik, guitar and violin, they play out the story of how they failed to Norwegianize a truly mixed culture.

Excerpt from the review of the performance on February 16, 2017:

"Another Sami" plays with rituals, roles and clichés, and the entire presentation shamelessly exploits our fascination with the strange and the strange, with world music and "new shamanism". And the performers do it with both pride and irony, and with great knowledge, musicality and empathy. The distance between the drumming journeys of the noaids in the distant past and the modern "scrub" of the Sami of today shrinks, and unites in an everydayness that is as much about the individual person and the multicultural reality in which we live, as it is about the Sami.

Heidi Halvorsrud Arild, The Cultural School Backpack in Aust-Agder

About the participants

Håkon Mathias Vassvik : Freelance actor and director. Permanent member of Ferske Scener since 2012. Member of Verk Produksjoner since 2006. Has received two Hedda awards for Performance of the Year with Verk, in 2011 and 2013. Director and actor in V/H/H, a theatre group he has with Bjørn Erik Haugen and Johan Harstad. Educated at the Academy of Performing Arts in Fredrikstad.

Torgeir Vassvik : Musician and composer. He is one of the foremost innovators of Sami music. Has released two albums, SÁIVU 2006 and SÁPMI 2009, and plays his own material both solo and in several different musical constellations, currently most active with the Global Fever Orchestra together with, among others, Kari Rønnekleiv, Ole Henrik Moe and Audun Strype.

Kari Rønnekleiv : Violinist. Has worked with the Tromsø Symphony Orchestra, Bodø Sinfonietta, Trondheim Symphony Orchestra and Trondheim-Solistene, among others. She also works with free improvisation together with the composer Ole-Henrik Moe. In 2007 she received the Spellemannsprisen for best album in the contemporary music class, where she performed music composed by Ole-Henrik Moe. Educated at Trøndelag Music Conservatory and at the Royal College of Music in London.