This accessible page is a derivative of https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2038366/2311281 which it is meant to support and not replace.
Page description: The original page has a white background with black text. At the top of the page, there is a full-length music video, and at the bottom there are three photos that were taken during the filming of the music video.
Music video description: Nani is a black-and-white music video. Nani is the name of a Mother Goddess who is not seen in the video, but the choral piece is sung for her. At the beginning, a crown adorned with birds, lace, and eggs – the Bird Crown – lies inside a raindrop-shaped cave that resembles a womb. A woman – the Finnish soloist with a long green dress – sings in the middle of a forest of tall, twisted pine trees while wearing the Bird Crown. A folk singing choir appears, wearing decorative folkloric costumes, and they slowly walk along a forest path. An older woman's hands conducts the choir in front of a tree. The choir sings with their eyes closed, and the singers' faces are serene, their bodies appearing to merge with the forest. The music intensifies into a powerful cry, and the woman – the Finnish soloist – enters the cave with the Bird Crown. She stands in the middle of the dark cave, exploring the shapes of the cave walls with her hands. The music returns to the original theme, and the woman returns to the forest to join the other singers. A young Bulgarian soloist begins to sing, and her face is luminous. The choir leaves, blending back into the forest landscape. The woman walks out of the cave, leaving the Bird Crown behind in the cave to be mothered.
Photo 1 description: A female folk singer wearing a dark red and black embroidered folkloric costume stands in a forest, touching the trunk of a large tree. Sunlight filters through the surrounding leaves.
Photo 2 description: Three female folk singers dressed in colourful folkloric costumes and floral headbands stand together in a forest. A woman in the centre looks ahead while the others stand beside her. Sunlight filters through the trees.
Photo 3 description: A group of female folk singers wear colourful embroidered folkloric costumes. They are standing and sitting in a forest, engaged in conversation as sunlight filters through the surrounding trees.
Nani was composed in 2017, shortly after the start of the global #metoo movement, and the music video for Nani was released in September 2022. Nani explores themes of gendered violence, transgenerationality and counter-mythmaking. The title of the song, as well as the name of my entire solo album, is named after the Armenian mother goddess, Nani (Ananikian 2010). The #metoo discussion gave me, as a woman, the opportunity to share my personal experiences of violence, which I had been forced to remain silent on and invisible about (Ahmed 2017, 2021). Thus, taking the #metoo thematic as part of my artistic practice expanded my expression as a composer and deepened my musicianship in the creation of new feminist folk music compositions, which aim to employ feminist strategies to break the silence. The lyrics ask the mother goddess why she abandoned her daughters and did not listen to what they had to say. Following this, the daughter expresses sorrow, grief, and pain through vocal improvisation. My solo part involves singing and shouting with strong chest resonance (Popova 2013; Kujanpää 2016; Aura 2023) and half-tone ornamentation originating in the Strandza region of Bulgaria (Popova 2013). The lyrics of Nani are partly Finnish and partly Bulgarian, and the languages are mixed in the improvisation section. The lyrics are influenced by the Balto-Finnic runo singing and lamentation tradition (see, e.g., Haapoja 2017; Silvonen & Kallio 2023). The composition is for soloist and choir, and the choral harmonies are reminiscent of the first period of the Bulgarian choir obrabotka tradition, which is characterised by descending scales and a drone (Христова 2007; Kirilov 2015; Kujanpää 2016). In the recordings of the composition Nani, I performed the Finnish lyrics while Mirela Asenova from The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices Vocal Academy performed the solo singing part in Bulgarian.
I composed Nani during a one-week residency, and that time allowed me to focus on composing. Creating Nani resembled mothering myself (Jokinen 2004; Joutseno 2021). While composing the Nani album, I worked at a music school in the evenings, and my five-year-old daughter attended evening kindergarten. Finding time for my composition work and later album recordings was a major challenge. The only available time was during the holiday weeks from the music school, during which my partner took care of our daughter.
Nani reflects Sara Ahmed's concepts of feminist ear and complaint (Ahmed 2017, 2021). The song is a story about being a woman, a mother, and a daughter. The Nani song reflects my experience of being a mother without my own mother in my daily life, and it is also a story about transgenerational mothering. The mothering in Nani is controversial: it can be interpreted as a healing process for the storyteller (daughter) as she shares her pain and is heard (ibid.), but it can also be considered as a story of a daughter being abandoned. The feminist ear and feminist listening (ibid.) occur both in those performing the song and in those who are listening to it. Through feminist composing, it is possible to challenge and dispel both historical and contemporary myths related particularly to gender and gender norms (hooks 2003).
The lyrics of Nani contain an intertextual dialogue between folklore motifs and personal experiences. Karelian and Finnish runo songs and folk songs feature several stories about mothers abandoning their children, and Nani is also a continuation of this folk song tradition (see, e.g., Asplund 1994). The question Mitä itket? (Eng. What are you crying for?) is a typical motif in Finno-Karelian runo songs and nursery rhymes (see, e.g., Suomen Kansan Vanhat Runot 2025). In Nani, the question is repeated throughout the song from various perspectives (What are you longing for, why are you lulling her?) Another folklore motif is present in the improvised part of the song, featuring the daughter expressing her grief and demanding her mother to listen to her pain: Mamo, miksi kauniit sorsasesi jäälle jätit jäätymään? (Eng. Mother, why did you leave your beautiful ducks to freeze on the ice?) Karelian runo songs and laments (Stepanova 2012) describe unmarried daughters metaphorically as ducks (kar. šorša / sorsa). Nani's Bulgarian lyrics contain the word iskra (Eng. flame), which describes the inner strength and power of the daughter. The phrase Stara maika, mila maika, moe sărtse kato iskra (Eng. Old mother, dear mother, my heart is like a flame) exemplifies this.
The initial concept for the Nani music video was to tell a story about a female warrior, which Vilma Metteri and I had developed regarding the role of contemporary middle-aged women. We have both recently begun to identify with the idea of becoming a statue of responsibility, which can be perceived and felt both externally and internally, as being hard as a rock.
The original plan for the Nani music video was to film in two locations: the Bulgarian part was to be filmed around the Serdika metro station in Sofia, which is located above the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Serdika (Sofia History Museum 2023). Our objective was to film in the vicinity of the old statues and stone walls with the singers from the Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices Vocal Academy. The Finnish part was planned to be filmed in a cave in Högberget, Kirkkonummi (Ogbuefi 2016), shaped like a vagina, which we managed to accomplish. Although we received support from the Finnish Embassy in Sofia, we encountered an attempt at corruption by an employee of the Natural History Museum in Sofia. This employee demanded that the choir conductor, Dora Hristova, pay 300 euros to film at Serdika Station, and the employee even threatened her. Due to this unpleasant experience, I quickly decided to film the Bulgarian part in Borisova Park, which was near my Airbnb flat in Sofia, because the park has a beautiful forest. Finally, a group choreography was filmed in the park featuring the singers of the Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices Vocal Academy, who were dressed in their national costumes. The stone theme was transformed into a forest theme, and the hands of the conductor, Dora Hristova, were filmed in reflection with the old trees. The singers and I were filmed walking and singing in the forest, touching the trees, and singing in unity with them. The original idea of becoming a female soldier had changed to a softer one that envisions human beings as part of nature (Lummaa & Rojola 2020), which had already been explored in the music videos Ogrejalo slantse – Vuota vuota (2019) and Celestia (2020b). In addition, I distributed a music video script to all the singers who participated in the filming of the video. My objective was to provide the singers with an example of how to write a music video script and how to execute it in practice.
The Finnish part of the video was made after the filming in Sofia. This took place in the cave of Högberget and in the forest that surrounds it. The cave, is also known as the 'Womb of Mother Earth' and was formed during the post-Ice Age period (Ogbuefi 2016). The concept of the female soldier was maintained as I was filmed inside the cave. The music video director, Vilma Metteri, wanted to assume a stronger role to improve my roughness because in previous music videos, I had been portrayed as beautiful and kind. In other parts of the video, I played the role of a maiden in the forest to connect with the forest footage shot in Sofia.
During the winter of 2021–2022, while editing the music video material, Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine expanded. Given the current situation, it became highly inappropriate to incorporate the theme of the female soldier into the music video. In addition, the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war led to a resurgence of neonationalism and Russophilia, for example, in Bulgaria (Stanchev 2023).
The war and the sight of people supporting it caused me great sadness, reminding me of the painful war traumas in my family history. In this case, the concept of the feminist ear and feminist listening (Ahmed 2017, 2021) was supportive, but became painful as a strong, embodied inflammation. The editing of the music video was suspended during the spring and summer of 2022. In August 2022, new scenes were filmed in my own home, and the female warrior theme was removed from the video. The music video was released in September 2022, a year after filming began.
In the final version of the Nani music video, the Bird Crown played the role of symbolising the concept of becoming: being in constant movement and process of change (Tiainen 2012; Moisala and others 2014). The Bird Crown, which in the first music video Ogrejalo slantse – Vuota vuota (2019) represented transgenerationality, femininity and the mother goddess, now turned out to be a symbol of abandonment and farewell. The video ends with the Bird Crown being left in the cave in the shape of a vulva, which, according to unauthenticated Finnish oral history, was a place where animals and women gave birth and sought safety.
The Bird Crown was left there to be mothered.
MUSIC VIDEO CREDITS: Nani (2022)
Directed, Visualisation and the Bird Crown by Vilma Metteri
Video & Visualisation by Antti Kujanpää
Script by Vilma Metteri and Emmi Kujanpää
Video in Sofia by Svilen Boianov
Music video assistants in Sofia: Alexandra Boianova and Johanna Korhonen
The video was filmed in Borisova Park, Sofia (09/2021), Högberget Cave, Kirkkonummi (10/2021) and Haaga, Helsinki (09/2022)
Performers: Emmi Kujanpää & Mirela Asenova, Violeta Marinova, Stanislava Bobeva, Elizabet Janeva, Maria Georga, Lubomira Pavlova, Maria Krusteva, Polina Paunova, Elichka Krastanova and Dora Hristova from The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices vocal Academy.
From the album Emmi Kujanpää Nani by Nordic Notes and Sibelius Academy Folk Music Recordings (2020a). Music & lyrics by Emmi Kujanpää
Mitä itket
mitä huudat
mitä vaadit
mitä kaipaat Nani?
Mila moma: "Kuule, Nani."
Mitä laulat
mitä tuudit
mitä varrot
mitä kuiskaat Nani?
Mila moma: "Kuule, Nani."
"Mamo, miksi kauniit sorsasesi jäälle jätit jäätymään?"
Stara maika
mila maika
moe sărtse kato iskra Nani.
Mila moma: "Kuule, Nani."
(Eng. What are you crying for? What are you longing for? Why did you leave your beautiful ducks to freeze on the ice? My heart is like a flame. Hear me, Nani, hear me.)
Musicians: Emmi Kujanpää – Vocals, Mirela Asenova – Soprano solo, The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices Vocal Academy: Dora Hristova – Choir conducting, Mirela Asenova, Violeta Marinova, Stanislava Bobeva, Elizabet Janeva, Lubomira Pavlova, Maria Krusteva, Polina Paunova, Boryana Vasileva, Maria Georga, Radostina Nikolova, Elichka Krastanova – Vocals.
The song was recorded and mixed by Mikael Hakkarainen and Delian Ivanov at the Bulgarian National Television, Sofia and Musiikkitalo, Helsinki 2018–2019.