IJE BUOR SALGYN PT.1

HD Color Video, 5 min 51 sec, sound design. Budapest, May 2023



According to Sakha cultural core system, the human soul consists of three spirits: Ije-kut is the mother’s soul transmit- ted from parents, traditions, culture; Buor-kut is our physical body; Salgyn-kut is air soul, that is, intellect, mind.

IJE BUOR SALGYN is a perfomative ritual act exploring the trichotomy of the human soul and the general condition of human existence through a performative ritual action referring to Sakha culture mythology. Two women, representing the Buor-kut, cycle around the Ije-kut – the sacred tree called ‘Serge’, connecting the lower, middle and upper worlds and the symbol of Nature. Women’s hair is threaded in the totem’s root. The ritual action becomes an attempt to reach the upper world through the monotonous cyclicality referring to the Sun movement – a metaphor for the elliptical progression of the universal life. This attempt is Salgyn-kut: every living essence is heading to the upper existence.

From one point, this action is fated: cyclicality is a loop. From a historical perspective, we live through the same extremes, facing traumatizing events which make generations deal with the continuity of violence. At the same time, the obviousness of cyclic movement makes us aware of the inevitability of change. At the end of the ritual, women reach the upper point of their braids. The climax of the action is predetermined: what has a beginning has an end. Three ‘Kuts’ unite and intersect, presenting the commonality of everything.

The performance itself could not be created without the sound: the manifest with cyclical structure about the elliptical movement is a base for the sound installation with the jew’s harp improvisation. It was written in two languages — Sakha and English.