Split Tooth: Saputjiji

Split Tooth: Saputjiji is the new performance by Tanya Tagaq, based on her acclaimed book Split Tooth and her album Saputjiji. Tagaq is Inuk (plural: Inuit), one of the Indigenous peoples of the Arctic regions of Canada. Her work is deeply rooted in Inuit community and culture: in a landscape of ice and light, but also marked by colonial history, violence, and cultural disruption.

Published in 2018, Split Tooth is a hybrid work: part poetry, part memoir, part mythology, and part raw coming-of-age story. It offers a powerful portrait of growing up as an Inuit girl in northern Canada. On stage, the universe of Split Tooth takes on physical form. Tagaq’s voice knows no bounds: she growls, whispers, sings, and tears open the silence. Rooted in Inuit throat singing, she moves between tradition, tenderness, and violence, weaving personal memories together with collective history.

Directed by Kaneza Schaal, previously at Holland Festival with Triptych in 2019 and known for her innovative work in opera and theatre, the performance creates a theatrical space where voice, landscape, and cosmos flow into one another. Tagaq has also appeared at Holland Festival before, giving a guest performance in 2006 with the Kronos Quartet.

Split Tooth: Saputjiji is intense and deeply sensory - an experience in which voice, body, and the Arctic landscape are inseparably intertwined.