Christine's kulning in the original Frozen inspired the plot for Frozen 2 according to Frozen 2 composer Christophe Beck:
“The challenge for me this time was to find some new ways of evoking the region,” he said.
A specific example he provided was the further utilization of Kulning, “a very particular and high-pitched and haunting style of singing from that part of the world ... [that] almost sounds like an otherworldly flute.”
“This time around, the filmmakers were kind of excited and remembered how effective that style of singing was in the first film,” Beck explained. “They ended up making it part of the story; the siren call that really drives the story and the narrative of Elsa beginning this journey of self-discovery to find out more about her past and what makes her who she is. That singing is not exactly Kulning, but kind of a Kulning-like style of singing. It’s a little bit more poppy, but that was still very much inspired by the Kulning in the first film.”
That “siren call” is worked into Elsa’s first major song: “Into the Unknown.”
Excerpt from
Forbes
Christine as Queen Iduna
Christine got her part as Norwegian Queen Iduna in Frozen 2 due to a synchronistic event that happened already in July 2013:
"In 2013 I was the high pitched voice that appeared whenever Elsa was using her snow powers. I used the ancient Norwegian
herding call technique kulning which is now the basis of the plot for Frozen 2 and their siren played by Aurora. My singing career started in the Northern Norwegian mountains when I called our family’s goats home for the night. I was gonna be a veterinarian, but SNOW of all things brought me to LA. And my herding calls landed me my first big vocal job. Neither me nor my goats would’ve ever dreamt of these calls appearing in a Disney movie! And the way I got the part as Queen Iduna is just as incredible.
July 15th 2013 I moved to Santa Monica and the first morning there I went to Chris Becks studio to record more kulning, before I headed to the beach to celebrate my new home with a friend. Once at the beach I got a very strong sense that something was up. I kept seeing Scandinavian people. Perhaps not THAT unusual, but it evoked something in me and I knew we couldn’t just sit down where ever, so I convinced my friend that we needed to walk further before we sat down. Eventually I saw a group of guys that «shone». It’s strange, but some people shine to me and I didn’t realize it back then that I had that «ability», but sometimes I know intuitively that I need to talk to certain people. I told my friend that I needed to talk to these guys, but she convinced me to just sit down and relax for once. Through the wind I heard that these guys were Norwegian and then I knew my intuition was into something. As we were leaving the beach I walked over to figure out why I was drawn to them. And yes, they were Norwegian AND they happened to work within film. «I knew it»
I thought to myself, thinking I’d figured out why I had had that sensation.
So me and my friend hung out with them all day and had so much fun. At night we had a few beers at the pier and I finally dared to reveal my secret, that I had sung on a Norwegian-inspired Disney-film that morning. And they looked at me «What? Are you singing on Frozen?» And I was as surprised as they were, because how did THEY know about Frozen? It turned out that they were doing the Norwegian voices back in Norway. They were visiting Santa Monica for only ONE day of their 2 week vacation in the US. And then they met ME at the beach. They drove me home later and as I came to my house, in true Disney style, the biggest shooting star I’ve ever seen flew above my house. You couldn’t make this up…. I felt that THIS was all a sign and the shooting star was the icing of the cake. This was NOT a coincidence.
When I met Jennifer Lee in September 2013 at the recording session for Frozen I told her about my experience and she told me it’s called synchronicity. And she told me to request for an audition for Norwegian Elsa. Let It Go was as if it was written for me, the Norwegian voice director told me. And for a little while I thought I’d get the part, but one of Norway’s musical stars got it. I was devastated, and confused, what about the shooting star above my house and that VERY serendipitous moment at the beach? Didn’t that mean anything? It was too unique, weird and magical to just not mean anything.
This summer I was in Norway and was asked by the voice director who had auditioned me for Elsa in 2013 to come in and audition for
Queen Iduna, Elsa’s mother. Somehow I knew I was gonna get that part. And I did. What I did not know was that Queen Iduna also appears in the film as a siren - the younger Iduna. So here I am in the sequel voicing the older Iduna, while the younger Iduna is singing the calls inspired by
the kulning I made in the first film. So it turns out I was Iduna already back then. And I finally found out why I had that magical experience at the beach in Santa Monica in 2013.
Another pretty magical thing is that I wrote a song in 2016 called
Calling The Aurora while I was singing in a mountain river of Northern Norway where I was calling the northern lights using my kulning. I stood in a river in -5F for almost two hours and I lost the sensation in all my fingers for a whole month because of frost bite. It’s my most popular track, not because of my the northern lights or my attempts to freeze to death, but because the kulning.
The song I’m singing in Frozen 2
«All is found» happens to be about a magical river that holds your path and all the answers, and if you listen to it sing, all the magic flows.
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