Shamans and Sufis

Johan Sara's incantations are a mantra for all Arctic seasons. He is one of the world's most famous Sami musicians but one would be mistaken to assume that he hardly needs the publicity. His people are among the most mysterious and least understood worldwide. The Sami live on the fringes of Nordic Europe -- the Scandinavian Peninsula, Finland and the Kola Peninsula of Russia.

Naturalness, freshness and authenticity are the triple hallmarks of Johan Sara's music. Distinctiveness is something of a theme for this particular Norwegian artist. His people have long objected to the pejorative term Lapp or Laplanders and are proud of their land Sapmi, and not Lapland, and their ancient Ural-Altaic language that has close affinities to Finnish and to a far lesser extent with Hungarian and Turkish.

Johan Sara is proud of his rich cultural heritage but he refuses to be typecast. Born and raised in Alta, in the snow- covered tundra, he now lives with his family in Maze, which he explains means Northern Star. His music is hypnotic and meditative -- reminiscent of the joik of the Sami shaman, the noaidi. His is the sound of the icy Arctic wind and the snowstorm. His is the call of the Arctic wolf and the reindeer. He is a genre-free melody of the innovator who derives inspiration from his particular joik, his people's archaic traditions and their freezing surroundings. "Way to live, way to go."

So did he always have this calling? "You're so right. My music captures the texture of my environment but I was not always aware of the need to preserve my joik."

Joik is a peculiar concept intrinsic to Sami culture. "One's joik, is one's way. One's way of doing things, one's way of living and singing and making music."

His commitment to Sami traditional music came relatively late. Having dropped Western classical music in favour of the traditional tunes and melodies of the Sami people he never looked back. His inspiration was his grandfather after whom he was named. "The joik was with him all the time."

I meet Johan Sara at the Shepheard Hotel, Garden City, over breakfast overlooking the Nile. The sun gleams on our breakfast table and the watermelon and strawberries are weirdly reminiscent of the vivid vibrancy of traditional Sami attire. So, where did his musical story begin?

With their music and traditional melodies, the constantly moving nomadic people, whether Arab tribesmen herding camels, donkeys and goats in Aswan or Sami reindeer herders in Arctic Norway, they are unquestionably on terra firma.

Their songs, like their spirits, are boundless for they inhabit the spacious wastes. They take along few mundane belongings and their musical traditions are their most precious possessions. "My hometown is a hamlet of no more than 200 people," Johan Sara concedes. "A far cry from Cairo."

The background similarities between the two turn out to be as striking as the different social and cultural milieus they hail from. The reindeer is to the Sami people what the camel is to the Arab tribesmen of Aswan. If further evidence of their momentum was needed, it was released in the magic of the music.

Life as a joik is an unparalleled experience. Johan Sara followed in his grandfather's footsteps: "As a child I watched how he moved, how he behaved, how he treated the reindeer, how he beheld the beasts of the wild."

What comes across at every moment is Johan Sara's unshakable assurance in the authenticity of his music, his people's heritage. He is also curious about the musical traditions and customs of other peripheral people, particularly the nomadic. "Their music strikes a certain chord with mine. That is how I came to play with the musicians of the Jaafra Arab tribe of Aswan."

Suitably garbed in his traditional Sami costume -- bright blues and brilliant reds -- and the multicoloured hat, he says that the Sami love eye-catching colours because of the blinding whiteness of their snow-clad land. The crimson and sapphire, ruby and carnelian all contrast with the brilliant whiteness of the land.

The wastelands of northern Norway have an unmistakable "Wild West" allure. The frosty windswept tundra and the primeval wilderness conjure up images of a distant mystical past.

The distance between the Norwegian capital Oslo and the Sami traditional herding grounds beyond the Arctic Circle are roughly the same as between Cairo and Aswan. During their fusion session at Makan, downtown Cairo, with the Jaffra group from Aswan, the blending of the incessant African drumbeat with the Sami incantations compounded the challenge of solo improvisation before an alien audience.

The heart-pounding lullabies hark back to time immemorial. Improvising with his grandfather in the vast expanses of the northern wastelands was a prelude to his performance with the Arabs of Aswan.

At the end of the session Johan Sara takes the microphone and tells his audience that he enjoyed the evening tremendously. He struggles to explain why as a son of a reindeer herder he knew music to be his calling. It was the power of primeval instinct. A hybrid of Arab and Sami sensibilities emerges that infuses each song with a quivering, shimmering life of its own. For both nomadic cultures, everything is temporal and ethereal.

The bewitching emptiness becomes a generous treasure trove of aesthetics. During intermission, I approach Geir Moe Sorensen, the minister counselor at the Norwegian Embassy in Cairo, to request an interview with Johan Sara. He arranged the meeting and he also first contacted Johan Sara to perform in Egypt, to provide a meeting point for two peoples ready to take their place on the world musical stage.

Norwegian cool was not quite the Valhalla but something more primordial. Norway's entire population is just half of London's and a quarter of Cairo's. "We are not Christian by nature. I am no Christian, it is an alien religion to me. I am an animist in the sense that I ascribe to the shaman ideology and I pay abeyance to Mother Earth. The Sun is my Father. I am not married, but I have a partner, Louisa, and we have two sons -- 20 year old Bernt Ailu and Jo Ari -- both sons have their own joik."

The Sami, like the indigenous peoples the world over, are derided because they supposedly never entered history. "I've been to Canada and witnessed the melodic chanting of Cree Indians. The joik beat is shorter but similar to the musical traditions of the First Nations. Canadian Cree traditional incantations are faster. The Sami joik is not a very fast rhythm like the Cree or the Jaafra of Aswan. If so, why?

"We nomads have a transient way of life and we are challenged by harsh environmental problems and lack of resources. Water is in short supply -- with us it freezes and with the Jaafra of Aswan it evaporates in the heat. We have ownership problems -- land ownership and the ownership of reindeer, just like the Jaafra have with their camels."

Johan Sara strongly believes in the under-discussed topic of cross-cultural communication. "I learnt early in life the way of my people's joik. Every clan has its own peculiar joik. " Formal lessons came later. And, the yearning to reach out also came much later. "Let's open it up."