Music video 1: Ogrejalo slantse – Vuota vuota (2019)

I composed Ogrejalo slantse – Vuota vuota (Eng. The sun is shining – Wait wait) in 2013 while I was on maternity leave. Ogrejalo slantse – Vuota vuota represents feminist folk music composing, and the music video explores themes of gender and transgenerationality. Both the composition and the music video represent a multi-layered transgenerational femininity: the story and the voices, bodies, and movements of women of different ages are intertwined, and the elements are in a constant state of becoming, transforming into eternal chains of goddesses. Female bodies and voices also engage in an active process of agency in the interaction between women from different age groups. This feminist strategy presents a counter-narrative regarding the perception of women's bodies and voices, particularly as they age and in comparison to younger women. In retrospect, I would say that my artistic practice focusing on feminist strategies in both composition and storytelling began with Ogrejalo slantse – Vuota vuota. This occurred with both the song and the music video, and my artistic practice of composing feminist folk music started to develop.

The narrative of Ogrejalo slantse – Vuota vuota is a dialogue between a mother and a daughter, and the composition features two soloists – a high female voice and a low female voice. In the Ogrejalo slantse – Vuota vuota recording, I performed the higher solo part as the daughter, whereas Elichka Krastanova, a folk singer and mentor from The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices Vocal Academy choir, performed the lower solo part as the mother. The song narrates the tale of a daughter burdened by several concerns, whose mother consoles her by uttering reassuring words: "Vuota vuota, varpuseni, astuvi astuu, armahaisesi" (Eng. "Wait, wait my sparrow, your loved one will arrive"). The lyrics are composed in Bulgarian, Karelian, and Finnish.

As a five-part composition, Ogrejalo slantse – Vuota vuota incorporates typical Bulgarian folk choir choral harmonies (Христова 2007; Kirilov 2015) with drone lines, intervals of seconds, clusters, and descending scales in lower voices. I created the melody line while improvising on the reed organ with my little one-year-old daughter, who was pressing cluster chords on the reed organ with her little fists. The melody is influenced by folk song motives from the Bulgarian Rhodopi Mountain region (Litova-Nikolova 2014; Popova 2013; Kujanpää 2016). I sang to my daughter Rhodopian folk songs when she was a baby, as well as when I was giving birth to her.

The music video for Ogrejalo slantse – Vuota vuota was filmed on a small islet in the Lauttasaari district of Helsinki. The video features five women of different ages, each playing a role in the story of the composition. The roles include a mother goddess (Ritva Kattelus), a younger woman played by me, and a dance group of nymphs (Marjo Kopra-Getov, Inkeri Sippo-Tujunen and Raija Tuukkanen), symbolising the choir in the song. In the Ogrejalo slantse – Vuota vuota music video, the Bird Crown symbolises transgenerationality and femininity. The five birds, in their role as protectors of the eggs, symbolise the continuity of life. The music video portrays a transgenerational agency in which the crowned mother goddess transfers her crown to a younger woman and, in doing so, bestows upon her the role and responsibilities of a goddess. The Bird Crown resonates with the themes of parting, transition, mourning and initiating something new.

Transgenerationality is also represented in the music video as an interaction between the environment of the sea, the human body, freedom, and care, as a movement in a state of constant transformation. Seagrass, pebbles, and lichen become one with the shapes of the human body, and the bodies interact with the movement of the water, wind, and water plants. Once the mother goddess relinquishes her Bird Crown, she is liberated to dance across the rock surface, appreciating her own body in interaction with the elements of the surrounding nature.

The dance of the mother goddess represents the liberation and loneliness that result from relinquishing one's role. The different layers of age are visible in the body of the goddess, merging with the holes in the ancient rock, the moss, and the surrounding air. The dance of the nymphs represents the respect between women and the eternal chain of generations. The role of the young woman is to appreciate her body, the water, the wind around her, and to embody the new role and responsibility of the mother goddess by wearing the Bird Crown.

The tradition of folk song transmission in Bulgaria remains predominantly oral, with younger generations learning from the older women. This tradition is passed down primarily from the grandmothers and other female relatives who reside in rural areas. This oral transfer of knowledge and skills is highly valued (Popova 2013).

Polina Paunova and Boryana Vasileva, folk singers from the Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices Vocal Academy choir, describe the transgenerational and affective representations and experiences of Bulgarian folk singing as follows:

People don't understand our lyrics, they don't understand our language, but to the grandmotherly melodies, to the grandmotherly music and singing, somehow, they feel that vibration and they cry. They start crying without even knowing what the given song is about.  

[Хората не разбират нашите текстове, не разбират нашия език, но на бабините мелодии, на бабиното музициране и пеене по някакъв начин те усещат тази вибрация и плачат. Почват да плачат без дори да знаят за какво се пее в дадената песен.]    

Polina Paunova & Boryana Vasileva, 13.1.2021    

Neviana Ganeva and Gergana Popova, former singers of the Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices choir, who currently reside in Finland, examine the characteristics of Bulgarian singing in relation to voice quality and performance:   

It's just very direct singing. The voice is powerful, strong, colourful. It's just... it proves itself. – – It's so strong and heavy. – – I literally transport myself somewhere else [when I sing] – – That's why I said that that's magic to me.

 [Това е просто много директно пеене. Гласът е мощен, силен, колоритен. Той е просто... доказва себе си. – –Това е толкова силно и тежко. – – Аз буквално се пренасям някъде другаде [когато пея] – –Точно заради това казах, че за мен това е една магия.]  

Neviana Ganeva & Gergana Popova, 31.8.2020    

In Finland, on the other hand, the connection with earlier generations of folk singers is largely severed, and Finnish folk singers frequently must search for their ancestors' songs in music archives (see, e.g., Haapoja-Mäkelä 2020). I thus argue that transgenerational art forms can strengthen the agency and interaction between women of different generations and can also be used to address the grief and longing that result from the disruption of the vocal and physical connection between generations.