Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Aug 07/00) - Another year, another festival. Now it's time to rest.

After clearing out of Inuvik's Midnight Sun Recreation Complex, that's what organizers of the Great Northern Arts Festival plan to do.

Festival co-ordinator Marilyn Dzaman muses about how her winter dreaming has turned into a summer success.

She calls out to administrator Tanya Van Valkenburg for the final sales figures.

"(There was) $150,000 in retail art sales," Dzaman repeats. "(That's) $25,000 more than last year's retail sales."

While making money is not what the festival is all about, it does matter.

Dzaman says a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts and extra funding from the Northwest Territories Power Corporation helped out in the performance art area this year.

"It made a big difference. The entertainment ... we had a breakthrough this year that was astonishing to us.

We had the Sikumiut Dancers, who were so wonderful. Just beautifully choreographed, each dance was explained, so professionally done."

Dzaman adds the dancers, who are from Iqaluit, performed one extra-special time. A wedding was held at the festival gallery and Sikumiut did a dance for the art-surrounded couple, Dennis Zimmerman and Hilary Greening.

"The whalebone was the altar."

Dzaman continues with performance talk.

"Tanya Tagaq Gillis throat singing ... we don't even know what to say. We had a jam session after the Sikumiut Dancers Saturday night, an impromptu jam session.

"We had 10 drummers on the stage, she was throat singing, and somebody was playing bass. It was all improvisation. We were saying there's no way to explain this to other people, or tell anybody how it was because it was so good and so rare."

Dzaman talks in equally effusive terms about the fashion show.

"People were just so amazed that they were seeing these things. And the Tulita Drummers were here and they sang Yukon prayer songs that nobody had heard. It was beautiful."

Dennis Allen's film Someplace Better was shown four times.

"The first time we featured a short film," says Dzaman.

Shared success

"I don't even know what to say anymore. When I think about those moments and those evenings ... something new happened. It really was a breakthrough in our performing arts section. And I'm looking forward to diving into that and seeing what more we can do."

Dzaman says success was not only due to extra funding, but also to those who organized the segment. Bob Mumford, for example.

But one dream didn't quite come to fruition, partly because Northern Games were also taking place in Inuvik.

"I wanted all three of the Inuvialuit drum groups together at one time," said Dzaman.

It's a fact that the festival is not strictly for Northerners anymore. Besides the tourists and festival aficionados making the pilgrimage to Inuvik, there are also southern gallery owners.

A gallery owner from Duluth, Minnesota attended the event.

"They had a great time. They couldn't believe it," says Dzaman.

"A gallery owner from Vermont bought a few pieces and they were gone from his gallery two days after he got back."

Add to that a woman from the Canadian consulate in Minneapolis, and you can understand how word of the festival has spread like wildfire over the last couple of years.

It's now back to cleaning for Dzaman.

"Computers everywhere, parts of computers, workshop supplies everywhere, chisels, easels, my winter coat..."