10
EESTI ELU reedel, 26. juunil 2020 — Friday, June 26, 2020
Nr. 25
Excelling in the Midst of Adversity (Part Three): Thriving as a Strategy A collaboration between Chaordic Design and Estonian Life This week’s theme is “Thrive”. A key part of Chaordic Design’s mission is to help or ganizations and communities realize their inherent potential to innovate and thrive. Thriving is seen as important in innovation contexts – and increasingly in the personal, or ganizational and community spheres. It is identified as a positive psychological state – one that adds more than it sub tracts, enabling adaptation and resilience. After all, how we feel tends to affect our engagements. Thriving can be infectious – on both the interpersonal and collective levels. It supports collaboration, builds trust1, and helps to establish a sense of shared belonging. A 2014 article in the Journal of Organizational Behaviour2 links the experience of thriving at work, to a certain type of “psychological capital”. In this sense, a psychological experience of thriving is seen as an important organizational
asset. Much like access to clients, resources, or markets. One way to understand thriv ing is to see it as a joint expres sion of “learning” and “vitali ty”. The learning component makes it easier to acquire knowledge and apply new skills. The vitality component indicates positive feelings as sociated with having energy and zest. From this perspective, thriv ing is also connected to the notion of “net positive”. In the sustainable develop ment3 and design field, Positive Development (PD) theory ar gues that to truly thrive, we must go beyond being merely sustainable – and must ‘give back’ more than we take, to our physical environment and com munities. A key precept of this approach is to ensure that our actions are designed to increase future options for all partici pants. How might one design for thriving? A perfect example of this is the development of the Estonian community in Canada. They emerged through a conscious effort designed to support adaptation, amplify future possibilities, and enable
We’re Listening with EMW: Duo Ruut’s Face-to-Face Musical Synthesis Vincent Teetsov With Estonian Music Week, one of our hopes is to bring newer artists and artists we don’t have the chance to see as much on stage, just as we celebrate established acts. That’s why we want to put a spotlight on Duo Ruut, a duo who have brought their music to our attention in inventive ways. Their notoriety has grown quickly, especially since they won the Noorte band (Youth Band) competi tion in 2018. Do you remember when the five members of Canadian band Walk off the Earth performed
Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” on one single guitar back in 2012? That was a clever way to reinvent that song, certainly. However, close instrumental collaboration like that exists on a more regular basis in this duo’s performances. Katariina Kivi and AnnLisett Rebane, the musicians of Duo Ruut, adhere their instru mentation and singing as close together as is possible. In live performances, they sit directly across from each other, with a large kannel (zither) in be
Cover art for Duo Ruut’s album “Tuule Sõnad”.
inclusion through arts organiza tions – thus empowering collec tive thriving. When Estonians fled their homeland and emigrated to Canada, they thrived by found ing countless organizations and social groups. These organiza tions corresponded to each aspect of their lives back in Estonia, including: athletics, academia, cuisine, choirs, orchestras, Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, and dancing. When the schoolhouse on 958 Broadview Avenue was obtained on the 1st of April 1960, it enabled the meeting of veterans and pen sioners. For children, it allowed for the development of a week end school and kindergarten. This building and these orga nizations amplified the social life, support, culture, and memories of home before being displaced. It goes without saying that losing loved ones, losing one’s home to war, and then restarting your life in a new continent is difficult. The fact that a completely different language had to be learned, too, meant that many Estonian refugees with special ized careers could not carry on professionally as they had be fore. But by working together
and pooling resources, the com munity could thrive even with so many new challenges. One means through which Estonians could transcend those challenges in the Estonian house was through the founding of arts organizations. From the beginning, women have been key figures in these organiza tions. The Toronto Eesti Maja Kunstikomitee (Estonian House Art Committee) collects and curates hundreds of paintings, sculptures, and photographs from Estonian artists to display on site. With the leadership of Eda Sepp, TEMKK help us take pride in our heritage through art. Benita Vomm was a found ing member of Eesti Kunstnike Koondis Torontos (EKKT – the Society of Estonian Artists in Toronto) in 1956. EKKT pro
vides a social network and platform for creative expression through gallery exhibitions, workshops, social gatherings, and art excursions. Benita’s daughter, Mai-Reet VommJärve, has continued to support EKKT with her ingenuity and leadership since she joined in 1960. In the next installment of this series, we’ll hear from Margi Taylor Self, owner of Creative Events Management Ltd.; about the strategies and concepts that have underscored her path as an artist and business owner.
tween. In this stage arrange ment, they communicate closely with eye contact. You can sense the music resonating between them as they sing in unison, which results in soaring peaks in their songs. Duo Ruut use rotating, re peating lyrics when they sing, as we have seen with other contemporary Estonian artists like Trad.Attack! and Marja Nuut. However, what I find different in their use of this musical device is the creation of a meditative state. With the kannel they share, sometimes the strings are bowed, function ing as a drone underneath the changes of the songs. Like the tanpura supports an ensemble in Indian classical music. To propel songs forward, the kannel’s strings are plucked, or drummed on with a pair of wooden drumsticks, as we see in their July 2019 performance for Eesti Pärimusmuusika Kes kus (Estonian Traditional Music Centre). Tapping rhythmically with sticks, without leather or felt ends as you might find on dulcimer hammers, produces both a hard, clicking beat and a cluster of sympathetic notes. The strings may even be hit by hand. An up-close and side-on view of their performances shows something akin to a tense chess game. Something new always crops up. When Ann Lisett plays one end of the harp, Katariina mutes strings selectively and then marks new passages in the song with brassy undertones. By observ ing up close, you can truly
appreciate the nuances of their playing, as audiences had the chance to do when Duo Ruut played Sofar Sounds Tallinn in December 2018. On occasion, comparisons have been drawn between their performances and Katajjaq (Inuit throat singing), where two women sing face-to-face, with elements of endurance and competition. They sing until one singer laughs, smiles, or gets tired. Then there is Re kuhkara, as practiced by the Ainu people in Northern Japan. One woman will cup her hands and chant into the other woman’s mouth, who in turn bends the notes with her mouth. It’s interesting to see similar traditions appearing around the world, though every culture and artist has their own way of per forming. Different vocal tones. With instruments or without. Old and new. Duo Ruut’s music translates well to recording, one highlight being their song “Kuhjalooja”, from their 2019 album Tuule Sõned (“Words of the Wind”). Recorded with José Diogo Neves at Retrosonic Pro Audio Studios in Tallinn, each track has breathing space. Each note and vibration becomes all that more impactful. One thing that plays an im portant role in the endurance of any musical act is the connec tion that exists between cons tituent members. Katariina and Ann-Lisett put it all into their recordings and shows. Focus, friendship, and folklore. Perhaps Canadian audiences will eventually have the chance
Entrepreneur donates €500,000 to support research into Saaremaa’s history
Society of Estonian Artists in Toronto.
Photo: Hannes Oja
1. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ doi/abs/10.1002/j.2162-6057.2009. tb01313.x 2. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ doi/abs/10.1002/job.1907 3. https://www.routledge.com/NetPositive-Design-and-SustainableUrban-Development-1st-Edition/ Birkeland/p/book/9780367258566
ERR, June 2020 Entrepreneur Kristjan Rahu has donated €500,000 to establish a research base with world-class technology which will focus, for the next five years, on researching Saare maa’s history. Marika Mägi, Doctor of Archeology at Tallinn Uni versity, who will help establish the research base, believes this will enable many chapters of Saaremaa’s past to get a new look. Recently Mägi and Rahu established a foundation to implement the project, which was named Osiliana in honor of Jean Baptiste Holzmayer, a for mer Saaremaa researcher, wrote Saarte Hääl. Rahu will invest €100,000 every year in the Saaremaa Foundation for Archeology and History for the next five years. Rahu said that historical topics have been im portant to him since childhood. All the findings from the re search will be included in the collections of the Saaremaa Museum.
to witness Duo Ruut’s composi tions live, experiencing music that is new to their ears and expands our musical horizons more and more.
