Projects

The Way She Told Her Story Video

Diane Jarvenpa: The Way She Told Her Story

I was fortunate to receive a grant from Finlandia Foundation to choose three songs from my CD bittersweet and three poems from my book The Way She Told Her Story and bring them together to make a video. The filmmaker Cadence Nelson shot footage and joined spoken word with music to make the short film The Way She Told Her Story.

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Singing On My Joy Stone

Kanteles are cool

I had the great joy and wonder of teaching the 5-string kantele to thirty students that ranged in age from 5 years old to 81 in the town of Cokato, Minnesota. I came to them as a recipient of a grant written together with the New Bohemian Arts Cooperative and funded by the Minnesota State Arts Board from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

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Some We Kept; Some We Threw Back

Some We Kept; Some We Threw Back

Diane Jarvenpa narrates new Finnish film on immigration: Some We Kept; Some We Threw Back, by Minna Rainio and Mark Roberts, depicts a man in contemporary times, making preparations for a sauna in the north woods of Minnesota.

As he chops wood, pumps water and lights the sauna fire – a woman narrates a series of experiences from her childhood when she and her parents left Finland for America.

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