Ayagaurluanga New York-ami-qaa

In October 2017, Gary Beaver travelled from Kasigluk, Alaska to Dreamers Welcome in Brooklyn, New York and collaborated with Bozeman on original music compositions combining Yupʼik language and electronic sound. Kasigluk is a native Yupʼik village in western Alaska situated along the Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta’s Johnson River, has approx. 100 households (pop.500), and is only accessible by plane or boat. Dreamers Welcome is situated on the East River in Brooklyn, is one of ~100 units within 475 Kent Ave., and is next to the South Williamsburg Ferry. As it was Beaver’s first time in New York (he had never been east of Washington State), he and Bozeman began their collaboration by finding through lines based on Beaver’s observed first impressions of commonalities and differences between their two cultures within the U.S. Over the course of a month, Beaver and Bozeman centralized their processes on these lists of through lines and collaborated on lyrics, language, and experimental music. Beaver, in staying with the tradition of Eskimo culture of telling stories through song, wrote sentences about traveling to and walking in New York. Beaver and Bozeman selected these sentences for Bozeman to produce into an original song. Bozeman recorded Beaver performing on a traditional Yup'ik drum and singing. Bozeman then converted the recordings of drums and vocals to sampler instruments in order to produce, arrange, and record ‘Ayagaurluanga New York-ami-qaa’.