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ARVIAT - A throatsinging duo from Arviat is travelling across the planet to share their art.

Lois Uyaupiq Suluk-Locke and Maria Illungiayok will perform throatsinging, drum dancing and storytelling at the Yamal Festival in Northwest Siberia later this month. They will perform each day of the week-long festival, which is titled Polar Rhapsody.

Throatsingers Maria Illungiayok and Lois Uyaupiq Suluk-Locke will perform in Siberia later this month. - photo courtesy of Bronitsky and Associates

Suluk-Locke and Illungiayok have been singing together for three years but each has been singing publicly for several years.

"We've been doing a lot of research and a lot of interviews with elders," Suluk-Locke said.

"They share what they know - explanations or terminology for different stuff we use, old legends and different techniques for throatsinging, stuff like that."

Suluk-Locke's uncle, Ian Copland, put the singers in touch with a talent agent in the south three years ago. Based in Albuquerque, N.M., Gordon Bronitsky arranged for the singers to perform at the Festival of World Cultures in Ireland in the summer of 2006. He also organized their appearance at the upcoming show in Russia.

This summer the singers performed in front of their biggest audience yet. They flew to London for a taping of The Paul O'Grady Show, a talk show out of London . The viewership was two million, Suluk-Locke said.

"The television station had been researching throatsinging and I guess my name popped up when they were Google-searching and things started from there," she said.

Part of the singers' project is to educate audiences about Inuit culture.

"We have to have a lot of patience with the people we are trying to teach," she said.

"I get the question 'do we live in iglus' quite a bit and, of course, we haven't been in iglus since 40 or 50 years ago. And they ask if we have any school. We have three here. And stores, and Internet and computers. They figure we're still in the olden days."

She said elders who advise them are pleased with their effort to share knowledge about the North with people around the world.

"They're pretty amazed," she said. "They're happy for us that we're getting to experience a lot of the outside world. They are happy that we are educating other people about Inuit culture."

The singers arrive on Siberia on Nov. 24 and start performing on Nov. 26.