Genghis Blues | |
---|---|
Directed by | Roko Belic |
Produced by | Roko Belic Adrian Belic |
Starring | Paul Pena |
Edited by | Roko Belic Adrian Belic |
Music by | Paul Pena Kongar-ol Ondar |
Production company | Wadi Rum Films |
Distributed by | Roxie Releasing |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 88 minutes |
Country | United States |
Languages | English Russian Tuvan |
Genghis Blues is a 1999 American documentary film directed by Roko Belic. It centers on the journey of blind American singer Paul Pena to the isolated Russian Republic of Tuva to pursue his interest in Tuvan throat singing. [1]
It won the 1999 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for a Documentary. It was also nominated for an Academy Award in 2000 in the Best Documentary Feature category. [2] [3] [4]
The documentary captures the story of blind blues musician Paul Pena. After a brush with fame and success in the 1970s, Pena's fortunes faded as he dealt with career and health problems.
While listening to shortwave radio, Pena heard a broadcast of Tuvan throat singing, the art of manipulating overtones while singing to make higher frequencies more distinguishable, essentially making it possible to sing two notes at once. Pena, over the course of several years, taught himself to throat sing to a very impressive degree. He eventually attended a concert of throat singing and, after the concert, impressed one of the throat singers, Kongar-ol Ondar, who invited him to visit Tuva, a republic of the Russian Federation and a formerly independent country from 1921 to 1944, under the name of the People's Republic of Tannu Tuva, and the home of throat singing, to sing in the triennial throat singing festival held there.
The entire journey, as well as the extraordinary mix of cultures and music, is captured in the documentary.
The Belic brothers shot the film with two Hi8 camcorders and edited it themselves. They were allowed to edit the film during nighttime at a professional editing facility. It took them three and a half years to finish the film after they shot it. All this time they lived on $500 a month in an apartment above an auto repair shop. [5] Christopher Nolan, a longtime friend of the brothers, is credited for his "editorial assistance."
Overtone singing, also known as overtone chanting, harmonic singing, polyphonic overtone singing, or diphonic singing, is a set of singing techniques in which the vocalist manipulates the resonances of the vocal tract to arouse the perception of additional separate notes beyond the fundamental frequency that is being produced.
The Tuvans or Tyvans are a Turkic ethnic group indigenous to Siberia that live in Tuva, Mongolia, and China. They speak the Tuvan language, a Siberian Turkic language. In Mongolia, they are regarded as one of the Uriankhai peoples.
Kyzyl is the capital city of the republic of Tuva, Russia. Kyzyl's population is approximately 120,067 (2021 Census);
Paul Pena was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist.
Kongar-ool Borisovich Ondar was a master Soviet and Russian Tuvan throat singer and a member of the Great Khural of Tuva.
Tuvan or Tuvinian can refer to:
Tuva is a part of Russia, inhabited by a Turkic people. Tuvans are known abroad for khoomei (xöömej), a kind of overtone singing.
Huun-Huur-Tu are a music group from Tuva, a Russian federative republic situated on the Mongolia–Russia border. Their music includes throat singing, in which the singers sing both a note and its overtones, thus producing two or three notes simultaneously. The overtone may sound like a flute, whistle or bird, but is solely a product of the human voice.
Sainkho Namtchylak is a singer originally from Tuva, an autonomous republic in the Russian Federation just north of Mongolia. She has been resident in Vienna, Austria since 1991. She is known for her Tuvan throat singing (khöömei).
Tuva or Tyva, officially the Republic of Tuva, is a republic of Russia. Tuva lies at the geographical center of Asia, in southern Siberia. The republic borders the federal subjects of the Altai Republic, Buryatia, Irkutsk Oblast, Khakassia, and Krasnoyarsk Krai, and shares an international border with Mongolia to the south. Tuva has a population of 336,651. Its capital city is Kyzyl, in which more than a third of the population reside.
Yat-Kha is a band from Tuva, led by vocalist/guitarist Albert Kuvezin. Their music is a mixture of Tuvan traditional music and rock, featuring Kuvezin's distinctive kargyraa throat singing style, the kanzat kargyraa.
Throat singing refers to several vocal practices found in different cultures worldwide. These vocal practices are generally associated with a certain type of guttural voice that contrasts with the most common types of voices employed in singing, which are usually represented by chest (modal) and head registers. Throat singing is often described as evoking the sensation of more than one pitch at a time, meaning that the listener perceives two or more distinct musical notes while the singer is producing a single vocalization.
Tyva Kyzy is an all-female folk ensemble performing Tuvan throat-singing, under the direction of Choduraa Tumat. It is the first and only women's group in Tuva that performs all styles of Tuvan throat-singing.
Chirgilchin, meaning "dance of the air in the heat of the day" or "miracle" in Tuvan, is a group of Tuvan musicians performing traditional Tuvan music. It was established in 1996.
The ensemble Alash is a throat singing band from Tuva, Russia, that performs traditional Tuvan music with some non-traditional influences.
Roko Belic is an American film producer and director. His directorial debut, Genghis Blues, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Tuvan-Mongol throat singing, the main technique of which is known as khoomei, is a style of singing practiced by people in Tuva and Mongolia. It is noted for including overtone singing. In 2009, it was included in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of UNESCO. The term hömey or kömey means 'throat' and 'larynx' in various Turkic languages.
Theodore Craig Levin is an American ethnomusicologist. He is a professor of music at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and earned his undergraduate degree at Amherst College and obtained his Ph.D. from Princeton University. Levin has focused his research on the people of the Balkans, Siberia, and Central Asia. His recordings from these regions have been released on various labels.
Tuva may refer to:
Aldyn-ool Takashovich Sevek was a master Tuvan throat singer.