My Favorite Place

From my article on http://yourfavouriteplaces.com/page/2



My favorite place in the world may not be a surprise to any of you, but it is in the middle of the tundras of northern Norway. This place is called Gárdin Duottarstohpu/Ravnastua Fjellstue/Ravnastua Muontainhouse. It is a place to stay for campers and other guests while travelling in the wild. You can rent rooms there and they also have showers, sauna, dinner, meetingroom and a small stage. My grandmother ran this place for 50 years, and now my uncle is running it.

It is 15 km from the road, so getting there you have to either walk, use the jeep, 4WD or traktor, and ski or snowmobile in winter. It is a nice trip up there. Summertime I usually spend 4 hours hiking up to this place, with 2 stops where I make a fire and drink water from the rivers and springs. Hiking on the tundra inspires me so much, it’s like every tree, plant and rock is singing with me!

When you come up to Ravnastua you see mountains, a river, tundra, forrest, and a field of flowers. This place has everything! In addition to all this there is also a lake close to the house. We call it bathing-lake, because there’s not much fish in that lake, but there is a small beatiful beach. This is the most beutiful place in the whole world! You can lit a fire by the lake and just relax, and if the weather is nice, go for a swim.


For all artist nerves are an issue, and this place is my special place that I think of when I want to feel safe. I think about this place before I go on stage. I visualize myself sitting by that lake, looking at that peaceful, nature, the shine of the water and the wild tundras surroundig it. It calms me down and grounds me when I feel myself being there. The smells, sounds and wind. And that way I make the stage be that special place…. My favorite place!

My album ”Jikŋon musihkka-Frozen music” released 2009 is my soundtrack of Ravnastua wintertime.


www.ravnastua.no

Har fått nytt kontor! ska jobbe hele natta! :P //Has got a new homeoffice! work all night..:P

The big resting day!

Oh my god I am sooo tired! I havent had a vacation since 2009... It looks like I can take a small one in the end of may! That would be the best! I looong for the beach! The beach is one of my favorite places. The beach and the forrest and the tundra! :D
Next week I only have a few things I need to do, so I foresee me resting alot! Niiiiccce! I think i deserve it!
Today I am going to watch Harry Potter! :D


Any recommendations for where to go on vacation?

Saami Easter festival, Kautokeino

The next day I took my band to Kautokeino where we had a concert at this big sports arena. The stage is huge there, so it was the opposite of the concert in Karasjok. I love that stage, It is big and always has nice decoration, and the sound and light guys are just awesome! For this gig I brought my own lightdesigner, Elisabeth Nilsson. Nothing can go wrong when the band, the stage, the lights and the sound - people are the best!

I had ordered a headworn microphone for this gig, but it was too big for me...:( But fortunately the sound-guys there had one I could borrow and it fitted me perfectly! I am now working on getting to buy that one and giving the one I bought back.
This was my first concert using a headworn microphone and I was a bit concerned about how I would feel, if I would feel naked or what, but no! It felt comfortable not having to hold the mic all the time and worring about how far away I am from it all the time.
Whenever I get the cance I will wear my headworn mic!

The saami easter festival is the biggest one in Sapmi, and every year there is alot going on there. This year was evene busier. Many activities and concerts where happening at the same time, so we always had to choose what to go and see and what to miss out on. Today, before I left for Karasjok, I sneaked in to see the rehearsal for Sami Grand Prix, just to check out the songs and artists. A group from Karasjok "Rolffa" was participating there, and right away when I saw their name on the list of participants I knew they would win! And they did! Congratulations! :D

Playing in a Sami turf hut in my Hometown Karasjok

My concert at the easter festival in Karasjok was set to the turf hut, Gammen in Karasjok. This is a restaurant run by The Rica Hotel in Karasjok. It is made of 4 traditional huts put together in one big. Each of them has a fire place and they serve traditional sami food, coffee and beer. This is a very atmosferic place to have a concert, and very smoky. My throat was drying out all the time from the smoke, so I had to drink alot. :D

The hut was almost full, so many people had come. and I was really syrprised! I never thought so many people would turn up at my concert in my hometown, they say thats the hardest place to be successful, but that night I really felt sucsessful! The organiser of the festival, Randi Olstad, said they had never ad so many people at a concert so early in the easter week, and had sold 50 tickets in advantage which was also rare.
I had my whole band with me, and was so pleased with the concert. It was a really nice experience for everyone! :D

Sound City Tromsø!

This saturday I was playing at Tromsø Sound City. The event was at Driv in Tromsø which is a student house and pub. The athmosphere there was just amazing, and it was so cool to be able to walk from one stage to another to watch concerts. I had such a great time there. There where three stages and they where all indoors in different floors of the house. This is the same place where I will be playing in May.

We where going to be just 3 people on stage, Juhani, Ole Jørn and me. But Ole Jørn had asked two more musicians from Tromsø to join, so Herman Rundberg and Kjetil Dalland also played with me! I was very proud to have them play with me!
We had about 2,5 hours of rehearsal before the sound check and it was all good! The guys are amazing! My goal is to always make the next show my best show, and I think it was! I was so happy with them all, cause everything went perfectly well and the audience where happy. :D


And I got good reviews from groove.no also!
http://www.groove.no/artikkel/43917958/festival-tromso-sound-city-15-16-april-2011




Now I am back in my hometown Karasjok where I will be playing tomorrow. I am excited to see how my nerves are this time. :D

Big shopping day! I bought a new Mac and a new printer! Just need to find a Crown mic headset, and all my dreams have come true in one day!

Trying to finish one thing before starting on another, but no luck! I will always be a multitasking woman. Effektive-Elin slår til igjen!

DARK WEEKEND CPH - Bigger and darker every year!

Last weekend was the weekend I had been looking forward to for a year!
Last year I was at this happening that Dud Muurmand/tribaldance.dk organises yearly with Callisto from tribagoth.se. I was following the workshops and also perfomed at the show. I had the best time there then and this year was even better!
All the workshops were sold out, and the Dark Cabaret on saturday had almost twice as many in the audience as last year.

I gave 2 workshops + an extra one, because of the sellout. The students at the workshops where just the best! We had so much fun.

For the Dark Cabaret Dud, Callisto and I had a special surprise wich was a act with the 3 of us together. We had each cosen music and choreographed about 1 minute that we were supposed to learn before the weekend. Since we all live in different countries this was not very easy to arrange, but we went through with the performance anyway. I dont know if I have the nerves to look at the video of us...

But this was such a great thing to do together, and we had lots of fun with it, so we will continue our collaboration on different projects as well.

I am just overwhelmed again from this whole weekend. It is always such a big inspiration to me when I go away on weekends where everything is all about dancing, and it is totally ok to talk about dancing all day and night. Meeting other dancers is a huge part of it! This year Ulla Edenmark turned up, wich made all of us happy!Ulla is one of the pioneers of Tribal dance in Skandinavia.






Ulla Edenmark and me before the show.









Dud, who was the main organiser of the whole thing, and worked so hard with everything to make everything this weekend perfect. And it was! I am really amazed of the good work she did! Everything went as planned to every minute of the day! It was such a pleasure to come there and know that everything was under control. She really deserves some kind of a price to have made this event what is was, and for all the work she does for tribal dance in Denmark, and all of skandinavia. She is just the most extraordinary woman I have ever met! A inspiration for all of us!

HUGS AND KISSES TO YOU DUD!! WE SALUTE YOU!

www.tribaldance.dk