Chyskyyrai is a Yakut singer from Myndagay, Sakha Republic, Russian Federation. She creates evocative, passionate, powerful and dynamic music by employing a wide variety of traditional vocal techniques. Her vocal style could be described as shamanic hysteria, drawing on oral epics, folk songs and animal imitation, creating highly emotional vocal episodes. Chyskyyrai, whose real name is Valentina Romanova, was born in 1971 in the village of Myndagay, Churapchinsky District.
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Chyskyyrai is a Yakut singer from Myndagay, Sakha Republic, Russian Federation. She creates evocative, passionate, powerful and dynamic music by employing a wide variety of traditional vocal techniques. Her vocal style could be described as shamanic hysteria, drawing on oral epics, folk songs and animal imitation, creating highly emotional vocal episodes. Chyskyyrai, whose real name is Valentina Romanova, was born in 1971 in the village of Myndagay, Churapchinsky District. Being the fourth child in her family, little Valentina wrote poetry and scripts for plays with her sister Sasha that they staged in their home, performing for family, friends, and neighbours. The plays were based on episodes from village life, featuring the characters who lived around them, but also drew on Sakha mythology and folk tales. After finishing high school, Valentina worked on a farm as a milkmaid, then cooked for a local canteen. She moved to the capital, Yakutsk, in 1993, to study performance in the well-known Platonov Folkloric Workshop, and began participating in the Sakha National Theatre. There she met with the celebrated Sakha female poet Korsunnakh, a meeting that led to the beginning of Chyskyyrai the performer. Chyskyyrai is representative of a new generation of Sakha female singers. The art of her performance is inspired by her formative years, when she grew up surrounded by nature, and by the rich musical and storytelling heritage of the Sakha, as well as by modern theatrical and intellectual movements in the Republic of Yakutia. She performs a variety of traditional vocal techniques, in a manner that could be described as shamanic hysteria, drawing on oral epics, folk songs and animal imitation, creating highly emotional vocal episodes. Chyskyyrai is deeply rooted in tradition, embodying the Sakha character of a menerik woman, one possessed by the spirits. Indeed, her singing is passionate, extremely powerful, and full of dynamic contrasts. So, starting from a simple breath, her compositions can blow up in total psychedelic singing of a shaman.
