Olena UUTAi – Blessing of Nature
2015
191K Likes
Best comments
1.“Fuck. She howls better than an actual wolf.”
More comments
- 2.“The dislikes are from real wolves who are jealous of her howl.”
- 3.“Only kids from 10,000 B.C. will remember this banger.”
The story
Olena UUTAi plays the khomus, the Yakutian jaw harp: a little frame with a flexible metal tongue that you play against your mouth. In her hands it stops being a novelty and turns into a whole forest. She grew up in Yakutia in Russia's Far East, a place she calls the world of endless snow and shamanic magic, trained as a classical pianist and has played khomus since she was seven. Her stage name mixes the Yakutian words for water, secret and create.
This is a live piece she calls Blessing of Nature, filmed at a concert in the city of Aldan in the Sakha Republic. She uses the khomus to call up animals – wolves, cranes, horses – sounds she ties to old shamanic ritual, and she has said her shows are improvised and the instrument makes the magic, not her. Her pitch is simple: nearly every culture on Earth has some kind of jaw harp, and it exists to bring people together. She has since taken hers to Britain's Got Talent, Italy's Got Talent, Germany's Das Supertalent and the Mariinsky Theatre. Not bad for an instrument that fits in your pocket.
