A journey into the tangled web of Tornedalian roots, in an effort to untangle the mess, piece together the broken parts, and help new branches grow. Three members of the music collective Höstorkestern sing and tell their stories.
ROTVÄRK is a musical narrative by and featuring the music collective Höstorkestern about a Tornedalian root system that is discovered as one grows further from one’s culture—through songs, tall tales, and poems. The storytelling performance ROTVÄRK is a journey into the soul where bilingualism is locked away, or contained.
Meänkieli is one of Sweden’s national minority languages. Due to oppression by the state and the church, the culture and language were marginalized to such an extent that they are now in a critical situation, at risk of disappearing entirely within just a single generation.
Once the subject of ridicule, intensive efforts are now underway to elevate the status of Meänkieli, expand opportunities for more people to learn it, and revitalize the culture.
This musical story begins in the 1990s in Vittangi, a village in the municipality of Kiruna located along the Torne River, and continues to the present day in Västerbotten.
The performance features Höstorkestern’s own songs and is performed in Swedish and Meänkieli, with elements of music by other bands and artists who have influenced the movement to reclaim the lost mother tongue.
Höstorkestern is a music collective formed in 2013 with roots in Tornedalen and Malmfälten that has released four studio albums and is currently working on its fifth. Today, the collective has over 30 members spread across the country. They tour in various sizes and musical configurations depending on which members are available where they are performing.
The EP *Laakson laulut* (Songs of the Valley) was released during the 2021 pandemic in collaboration with the Lava Cultural Association and ISOF (the Institute for Language and Folklore) to create new music in Meänkieli that incorporated several village dialects of the language. Höstorkestern wrote the songs, which were then translated by Tornedalians from places such as Jukkasjärvi, Kaunisvaara, Pentäsjärvi, and Övertorneå.
