On February 1, 2008 The Yukon International Storytelling Festival will be presenting  the OLONKHO EPOS at the Yukon Arts Centre. THE OLONKHO EPOS  has been declared a UNESCO Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. 

Olonkho epitomizes all that the Yukon Storytelling Festival has aspired to protect, archive and acknowledge in its 20 years of presentation, outreach and development of the storytelling arts. OLONKHO in its purest form is a  3 day performance that encapsulates the creation tale of the Yakut people and is recognized as the true Siberian Shamanistic passage of rite. The senior performers will be performing a very condensed version for Yukoners.

The 2 Yakut senior performers that will be performing are Stepan Emelyanov and Kupriyan Mikhailov. They are recognized as foremost Olonkho artists and Mr. Emelyanov has over 50 years of dramatic experience. A description of what Olonkho entails and the importance it holds in the history of storytelling follows.

Past Board Member, Tytus Hardy who spent last winter in the Sakha Republic is willing to give interviews on the performance. He can be reached at tytusha@yahoo.ca. The artists will have a local interpreter when they arrive in the Yukon and will be available for interviews from February 1 – February 6, 2008. Please call 633-7550(yisf office) or 334-1227(Lil Hambrook) to arrange for times.

Yukon storyteller DORIS MCLEAN of the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation  and Yukon Award Winning Poet MICHAEL REYNOLDS will support the OLONKHO EPOS as the opening performers.

Junction Arts and Music(JAM) will be hosting a performance of OLONKHO at the St. Elias Convention Centre with the Dakwakade Dancers as the opening performers on Sunday February 3, 2008.

The Olonkho Performances are  supported  by  the *

Aboriginal Peoples Collaborative Exchange of the Canada Council for the Arts (APCE)

 Yukon Arts Funding Programme and Arts Fund, Dept of Tourism and Culture, Yukon Government

On Yukon Time, Yukon Government

 City of Whitehorse Recreation Grants, City of Whitehorse

UNESCO

JAM (Junction Arts and Music), Haines Junction

Sakha Republic and Olonkho

Comprising most of eastern Siberia, Sakha (pronounced sa-HA) is as big as India and as empty and remote as Iceland. This is the largest of the autonomous republics of the Russian Federation and one of the coldest places on earth. The Yakuts descend from Turkic nomads who were related to the Uighurs and the Kyrghyz.

With a culture related to other Turkic people's, heroic epic is important to the Yakuts, and is called Olonkho (pronounced O-lan-HOE). They average 10 - 15 thousand poetic lines, reaching up to 20,000 or more.

Olonkho are performed without accompaniment, there being no native instruments, usually at festivals, over several nights. The monologues of the Olonkho heroes are sung, the rest is recited in a fast singsong voice, always by solo men. In Olonkho songs the roles are distinguished by various timbres and tones: the songs of the heroes by bass, young bogatyrs by tenor, and the abaasy (evil spirit) bogatyrs of the lower world by a deliberately incorrect rough voice.

Both the Yakut and the Dolgan (a reindeer-breeding ethnic group) greatly revere storytellers. They particularly favour animal tales that tell about the origin of the different clans.

“The narration of the Olonkho starts with kidnapping by the evil character - abaasy - of the hero's sister or with Aiyy people requesting to protect a girl from the abaasy. In some others the hero himself departs to look for a wife. On his way he meets all sorts of difficulties. The hero has to defeat the abaasy - terrible monsters, who are often one-eyed and one-legged. The fight occurs in the form of a single combat: when the weapon is not helping, they use their fists. The hero (although just like abaasy) has a talent of turning into different animals and things, and in those appearances he overcomes huge distances, high mountains, fire seas, etc. Having defeated all his enemies, the hero marries. Then new adventures related to their return start. Finally, the hero returns to his homeland. Since then he is not into heroic deeds any more, but lives quietly, takes care of his homestead and brings into the world big posterity.”

ABOUT STEPAN EMELYANOV

In spring 1961 after graduation from the comprehensive school I occasionally entered an actor faculty of the Schepkin’s Drama College of the USSR Small theatre. After graduation from the Drama College in 1966 I and my friends became the first actors of the Nyurba mobile theatre, where I was working till 1973.

In 1973 I quitted from the Nyurba theatre because of my family circumstances and was working for one year as a cultural worker of a club in Olekminsk.

In 1974 my family moved to Yakutsk and I started to work as an editor in Youth broadcast of Yakutsk radio and television. Having worked in the radio and television for about three months I went to work to the Oyunsky’s Yakut Drama Theatre.

During 1974 – 1976 I was an actor of drama and in 1976 I was invited to the “Yakut theatre Union” on music as a deputy director where I started to work under the supervision of the general director Gabyshev A.A. In the position of a deputy director on musical theatre I have worked till 1980 then went back to the drama theatre as a usual actor on my own accord where I stayed till 1983.

Since 1983 – 1984 I was appointed on the position of responsibility as a director of the Yakut Drama Theatre.

Since 1984 till 1998 I have been a director of the Yakut Drama, recently the Oyunsky’s Sakha Academic Theatre.

During a period of working as a director of the Sakha Theatre young talented Andrey Borisov was a stage manager and the theatre first time started to take part in Russian, International festivals and started to receive high appreciation of specialists and delighted spectators reception.

In 1986 receiving the USSR State Award was the evidence of high artistic level. During these years the Sakha Theatre showed its work through the Soviet Union in Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Kirgistan, Georgia, the Ukraine, Ufa, Cheboksary, Moscow and Saint Petersburg. It also made a lot of abroad tours: 1988 – Mexico, 1989 – Findland, 1990 – Germany, 1992 – Norway and the USA, 1993 – Poland, 1994 – Switzerland. The theatre showed its best spectacles in these countries, like “My darling homeland”, “The great Kudansa”, “Hanido and Halerha”, “A kind man from Sechuan”, “The song left by me” etc. In 1998 I left the position of a director in the Sakha Theatre and started to work as a stage manager in the Pushkin’s Russian Drama Theatre.

During my work in the theatre till 2002 I have put up all five fairy tales of Pushkin on the stage, “Small tragedies” and some insignificant works were not so successfully put up on the stage, about which it isn’t worth to talk about. Since 2002 I have retired, wrote and published my memoirs, wrote the second book about the actors, with whom I had to work and talk. The book is in the publishing house now, but unfortunately I do not have enough money to print it out.

20^th Annual Circumpolar Banquet and Auction

On Saturday February 9, 2008 the Yukon International Storytelling Festival will be hosting its 20^th Annual Circumpolar Banquet and Auction at the Legion Hall on Alexander St. The dinner features wild Yukon game, Arctic char, Northern Berries and cooks are Kate White and Lil Grubach-Hambrook for the dinner and Desserts will be made by LeeAnne Dorval of Maggie and LeeAnne’s. Dinner begins after 6:30 pm. The Auction includes flights from Air North, certificates from Icy Waters, Mac’s Fireweed, The Deli, amongst others and there is a large variety of original artwork by Yukon artists and artisans. There will also be artist performances. Tickets are $30 per person. Families are welcome.

Tickets for the 20^th Annual Circumpolar Banquet and Auction  can be purchased at the door or by calling 633-7550 or 334-1227. Visa is accepted.