Tanya Tagaq’s intense, evocative vocalizations, based on Inuit throat singing traditions, help reclaim the controversial 1922 film Nanook of the North.

Tagaq, along with percussionist Jean Martin and violinist Jesse Zubot perform a live accompaniment to the film’s silent images of life in an early 20th-century Inuit community in Northern Quebec. Commissioned by the Toronto Film Festival for their First Nations Film Festival, Tagaq’s work with Nanook began with a sonic exploration of the film’s imagery, images that spoke deeply to the vocalist. Tagaq’s sense of the sound of the Arctic spaces shown in the film transforms the images, adding great feeling and depth to what is a complex mix of beautiful representations and racially charged clichés.