KURATED NO. 248
VANCOUVER FOLK MUSIC FESTIVAL 48
Featured Act
• Elisapie
Dynamic indigenous performer Elisapie
and her full band play the Vancouver Folk Music
Festival’s Mainstage on Friday evening, July 18.
(Leeor Wild photo)
CONTENTS
- PLAYLISTS: Juno-winning album Inuktitut on Spotify and YouTube
featuring the 10-song album and the 10 original songs it covers - READ a full review and story of the Inuktitut album in Kurated No. 192
- SEE VIDEOS: Chan Centre Dance Party / Sept. 2024 (57 secs)
Elisapie Talks About Time After Time (60 secs) - VIDEO SONG: Arnaq live at the Chan Centre (5 mins 28 secs)
Closing her Chan Centre show last fall with an extended tune, Elisapie invited audience members to dance with her on the stage which quickly filled
ELISAPIE WILL ROCK YOU!
Keeping community and language alive through images, music and memory
Born in the small northern town of Salluit in northern Quebec, Inuk singer-songwriter Elisapie’s musical career is an unfolding story of Indigenous life. Last fall she offered a unique look into her story with the multimedia show Uvattini – “home” in Inuktitut– at the Chan Centre.
A partnership with Algonquin multidisciplinary artist Émilie Monnet, the work is a moving snapshot of life in Nunavik through images, narration and music. Elisapie drew from the songs and evocative videos from her 2023 Juno-winning record, Inuktitut. The album’s 10 tracks are translated cover versions of the popular rock and pop songs she grew up hearing on the radio and dancing to at the community hall.
Elisapie says the songs are an emotional autobiography evoking memories and events from her youth. She told Tom Power of CBC Radio Q that Pink Floyd’s song Wish You Were Here, ” … was really about young kids trying to deal with the loss of a cousin who committed suicide, so this was a song we put on often.”
Inuktitut is remarkable – a moving musical document capturing a critical social and cultural moment for the generations of Inuit who lived through it. Tom Power says it best: “A great artist, through their reinterpretation, can bring things to the songs that you never thought of before… and this album does that like I’ve never heard any other.”
Inuk singer-songwriter Elisapie Isaac collected a Juno Award in March for Adult Alternative Album of the Year for her fourth collection, Inuktitut. (Leeor Wild photo)
Elisapie on stage
In contrast to the more subdued and introspective renderings on Inuktitut, an energized and dynamic Elisapie along with her full rock band delivered a strong Chan Centre stage show replete with costume changes and innovative lighting. The sold out audience was brought to our feet several times and, at the end of the show, she invited concert goers to join her on stage which was quickly filled for a prolonged final tune.
Vancouver’s Folk Music Festival audience can look forward to an engaging show on the Friday evening mainstage.
ED. NOTE – for a full review and story about Elisapie’s Inuktitut see Kurated No. 192 from October, 2023
07 June 2025
