ANCESTRAL SONGS
AND HOW TO SING THEM 'BACKWARDS'
workshop
2024 - ongoing

The workshop Ancestral Songs and How to Sing Them Backwards builds on Self-reversing, the ongoing project and award-winning performance by Olga Kozmanidze. It further explores the liberating impact of singing 'backwards' on the performers’ voice, body, and imagination. Participants are invited to work with traditional folk songs of their choice and reinterpret them through the practice of singing 'backwards', transforming lyrical singing into a radical vocal experiment.

Workshop Characteristics
Site-specific
The workshop adapts to each location by incorporating local folk songs, situating the experience in the cultural and natural surroundings.
1 .
Participatory
Participants choose a folk song to work with and create one-of-a-kind performances that reflect their individual voices and personalities.
2.
Refining attention
By practicing simultaneous listening and singing, participants sharpen their focus and attention.
3.
Liberating
Loosening self-control, the practice frees the body, voice, and imagination, allowing the emergence of unexpected sonic and plastic expressions.
4.
Improvisational
It’s an experiment in real-time hermeneutics, where participants make spontaneous choices, resulting in live, adaptive improvisation.
5.
Singing to belong
Interpreting traditional folk songs means singing together with ancestors, creating connections across time and generations.
6.
Workshop
Traits
Site-specific
The workshop adapts to each location by incorporating local folk songs, situating the experience in the cultural and natural surroundings.
1 .
Participatory
Participants choose a folk song to work with and create one-of-a-kind performances that reflect their individual voices and personalities.
2.
Refining attention
By practicing simultaneous listening and singing, participants sharpen their focus and attention.
3.
Liberating
Loosening self-control, the practice frees the body, voice, and imagination, allowing the emergence of unexpected sonic and plastic expressions.
4.
Improvisational
It’s an experiment in real-time hermeneutics, where participants make spontaneous choices, resulting in live, adaptive improvisation.
5.
Singing to belong
Interpreting traditional folk songs means singing together with ancestors, creating connections across time and generations.
6.
Participants impressions
Nadia D’Onofrio
workshop participant
Completely unexpected: backwards singing, repeated up to nine times, with different results each time, incomparable to the original song. Very beautiful and enriching, sometimes even hilarious. It can be liberating, even for the most timid and introverted.
Martina Marini Misterioso
workshop participant
...the shift from an intensity that felt almost tragic to pure hilarity and comic effect, detached from the words and yet triggered precisely by them, even if they were no longer understandable. The involvement of the body, in the attempt to follow new and unfamiliar sounds, was also something very powerful.
Francesca Chiola
workshop participant
While singing ‘backwards’, I discovered a part of myself as a singer that I never thought I could express. Also, I learned that I have the ability to deconstruct and rewrite a melody multiple times.
Satya Forte
workshop participant
The workshop required different modes of listening. It was fun and, even though I theoretically understood the result of the various iterations of singing ‘backwards’, the final outcome was completely unexpected and surprising.
Sara Dias
workshop participant
During the first round of sharing the chosen song a kind of sacred space was created where each folk song found its own place to exist. Also, we had the chance to experience extremely contemporary dynamics.
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