Honeypaw ti 23.5 19:00 Kulttuuritehdas Siihtala

Kulttuuritehdas Siihtala
Nurmeksentie 4
80100 Joensuu

Length/kesto : 1hour

Honeypaw is Interdisciplinary artist Jurgita Žvinklytė and musician/luthier Matti Palonen based in Toronto, Canada.  They explore the interconnection of the Lithuanian sutartinė and the Finnish Kalevala runo traditions.  They began playing traditional kantele and jouhikko, and added the concert kantele in 2020 to give their sound a more modern groove.

They often straddle the line between the urban landscape and the surrounding forests.  In their Finnish and Lithuanian heritage, traditional instruments helped define the boundary between the human and forest realms.  With their background in lutherie and sculpture, Matti and Jurgita have developed the idea to build tree harp sculptures based on the kantele. They have performed and installed Tree Harp sculptures at festivals in Canada and Lithuania.

Their current project involves researching the work of folklorist Robert Aukusti Niemi, who followed the path that Elias Lönnrot took collecting material for the Kalevala from Finland and Karelia in the early 1900s.  In the 1910s, Niemi made field collections in Lithuania in order to conduct comparative research of Finnic and Baltic folk songs.  They will present material from this project during their tour of Finland in 2023.