Balkan song workshop - Les Escales de l'Opéra Voyageur festival

Balkan singing workshop with Veronika Warkentin, an artist with a singular background ranging from dance to music via theatre and trained in all facets of Balkan songs and polyphony.
This workshop is aimed at non-beginner singers of all levels and will focus on the exploration of polyphony through 2 to 3 songs from different Balkan countries (Bulgaria, Macedonia...), transmitted exclusively orally, without the support of a score.
The emphasis will be on listening deeply to the sung voice (differentiated harmonics of vowels, notion of timbre, observation of the resonance of the voice in the body), in order to build and make the polyphony sound in the choir.
It is on this "organic" basis, which rests above all on the feelings and memory of the body, that the learning of songs will be approached. Specific work will be proposed on the style, ornaments, cultural roots of each song as well as the pronunciation of languages and dialects. Finally, elements of understanding of the asymmetrical rhythms typical of the Balkans will be proposed.
We will approach the breath, the voice and the song by exploring inner feelings in order to open our ears to the space and to other voices.
We will focus on
Awareness of the body's energy flows that feed the singing
Awareness of polyphonic listening "mixing our voices to dare dissonance...".
Awareness of melodic phrasing
Ornamentation techniques in different regional styles and languages
The physical feeling of complex asymmetrical rhythms (possibly with some simple body percussion)
http://qjev.fr/biographie/veronika-biographie.php