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BLYTH FESTIVAL SALUTE, WEDNESDAY , JUNE 16 , 2004. PAGE 11 .
Musician finds opportunity to act with Festival
ANNE LEDERMAN
Finding cross-over success
By Sarah Mann
Citizen stuff
Anne Lederman credits acting in
The Outdoor Donnellys for making it
possible to present her play Spirit of
the Narrows.
"Blyth has really been the only
place that I've ever crossed the line
from being a musician to being an
actor and I'd have to credit The
Donnellys largely for doing that,"
Lederman said.
"I'm a pretty inexperienced actor
in a lot of ways. I'm a musician first
and this is taking me further into the
acting world than I've ever gone
before so I have to trust that it's the
same process as learning to play (a
musical instrument)."
• Spirit of the Narrows is the story of
a group of Metis fiddlers Lederman
met while in Manitoba. A friend of
Lederman's -was there and sent her a
tape of the music which she says,
was unusual but fascinating.
"The music was very exciting,
very driving, but it was kind of wild
and unpredictable and you couldn't
really tell where the tunes were
going. This was just a tape of one
elderly fiddler and I had no idea
whether this was a style that people
played or if it was just some crazy
guy who lived in the bush."
Lederman "managed to wangle"
herself to the prairie province and
found out that it was a very old style
of playing in their community.
Lederman says this style was fairly
unknown to outsiders because most
people found it strange and the
players knew that so they didn't play
it for anyone outside of their own
community.
When Lederman first went there
she would ask them to play, "and
they would play me Orange Blossom
Special and things like that and I
would really have to encourage them
to play their own tunes. the tunes
they learned from their families and
the tunes they passed on."
When the fiddlers believed
Lederman was actually serious about
hearing the music, they eventually
played their songs for her. Lederman
spent a couple of Months in the
community over the course of two
years and made a lot of recordings.
"I originally had a grant from the
National Museum to make records
and we put out a four-album set of
vinyl recordings. A couple of years
after that I still had a lot of stuff
tossing in my brain and I just started
to write down stories about the
whole experience of being there and
meeting the fiddlers and what it was
like for me to be around the Native
community."
At first the writing was "just to get
it out .of my head" but then it seemed
like it was interesting enough for her
to share so she began telling the
stories as a solo show.
"I would just sit on stage, tell the
stories and play the fiddle and it
stayed like that for years until I
.approached the Festival last year
about doing it. maybe just as a solo
show. It was largely Eric (Coates)
who' decided that we should re-work
it to be more theatrical involving
another actor and involving actually
playing some of these characters
instead of just telling stories about
them."
Lederman will play herself at the
present time as well as the Metis
fiddlers and local actor Cappy Onn
will play Lederman in her 30s when
she was first experiencing the music.
"My feeling is that it must be
harder for Cappy trying to play -
someone who's on the stage with you
and there all the time. I guess she has
a good model -but neither of us will
know how that's going to work out.
It's actually hugely entertaining to
see someone be you in their own
way."
Lederman says the style of fiddling
is a blend of Celtic. Scottish, French,
American and Native - the element
that makes it unpredictable.
-That's the element that makes it
inpredictable because old Native
music is very different. To Western
ears, to non-Native ears• you can't
really understand the forms of the
songs and where they're going and
the shape of them. For those of us
who grew up on standard fiddling
where we can absolutely predict
what will happen it's a change."
Lederman says the style of playing
is very personal to the fiddlers of the
Metis community she visited. And
it's even unpredictable for them but
that's part of the tradition. The tunes
they play are traditional but they
change them -a. little bit every time
they play.
"So they'll take a part of the tune
and play it longer one time and
shorten it the next time. They can't
even 'play together in -the old style
very well unless they're brothers or
fathers and sons in the same family
and they really know each other."
And, unlike a lot of fiddling, the
men didn't play together. The
tradition was to take turns - one
person plays and the rest listen.
"It was a fairly poor culture so they
pass the fiddle around and take
turns."
Lederman also noticed a respect
the players had for each other's
tunes.
"You have a particular way to play
a tune and that's your way and
people learn the basic elements of
the tune from each other but they
always feel that they have to find
their own way to play it so -it's
theirs."
The Metis style is also different
from the formal fiddle playing
because there's a way they use their
feet.
"I just couldn't do that at first. You
know, do this fancy footwork while I
was playing. After being theie for a
month or so I just found I could do it.
That process is a wonderful thing
and I'm glad it kicked in and worked.
You sit in rooms where it's
happening and you kind of absorb it
all by osmosis."
Lederman admits she probably
should have been nervous about-
going to this community for the first •
time by herself but says she wasn't
scared at all.
"Other people thought I should be
scared but I just wasn't. I was
somewhat used to hanging around
with elderly fiddle players and the
fact that they were Metis didn't make
it any harder for me. They were
elderly fiddle players who
Continued on page 14
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