The Fifth International Symposium on Traditional Polyphony ...

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ANDREA KUZMICH (CANADA)
THE TRANSNATIONAL ANCESTRY OF GEORGIAN POLYPHONY:
OTHER PRACTITIONERS OF TRADITIONAL GEORGIAN SONGS AND
NARRATIVES OF THE PAST
<strong>The</strong> toast was to the homeland. <strong>The</strong> small group of Georgian expatriates was celebrating the end of lent
in a suburban Toronto home back in 2010. Besides myself, there were two other non-Georgian at the dinner.
An Uzbeki fellow married to a Georgian and a long-standing landed immigrant from Belgium. She made her
contribution to the toast. While all the Georgians were acknowledging Georgia and Canada, her words only
addressed Georgia. Initially, she was drawn to Georgian culture through singing the songs. She had lived in
Georgia, taught there, studied there, made friends there. And despite all of this, for her, “Georgia” was felt the
most through Georgian songs. Somehow, through this millennia-old oral tradition, it seemed Georgia’s soul
and her soul could touch each other. And so she raised her glass specifically to the appreciation of Georgian
song, to the understanding they provided, and to the homeland from which they came. <strong>The</strong> rest at the table
joined in appreciatively, admiring her sensitivity, respect and understanding for Georgian culture.
What this anecdote highlights are some interesting perceptions of Georgian traditional music. According
to the Belgium-Canadian, the songs embody Georgia and communicate beyond words something that is
essentially Georgian; something she appreciated and felt so strongly about that it encouraged her to drop
her lifestyle in Toronto, move to Georgia and explore the culture there. That the toast is to Georgia, and that
she frames her love of Georgian songs through the homeland further suggests the importance of the role of
Georgia, its history and ancestry within the songs. This underscores the subject of my paper: the intersection
between foreigners who perform a traditional music and the ancestry that that music embodies. Inspired by
that sensation one occasionally has when listening to a piece of traditional music, the sensation that the music
seems so old - seems to be communicating some ancient wisdoms that transcend time, space, and even cultures
-- this paper is interested in how the cultural ancestry of a traditional music is experienced by the others who
perform or listen to it.
In the case of Georgian polyphony, the sentiments I just described by the Belgium-Canadian are
not unusual. At a Georgian singing workshop I attended in Vermont, in the fall of 2005, a number of the
participants had similar responses to the music. One participant, who had been to Georgia for the first time
earlier that year, yearned over the fact that histories in America were either forgotten, ignored or lost into the
cultural melting pot. As she explains:
In Georgia they have a really strong sense of self and a strong sense of who they are and where they come
from and this music runs so deep in their souls... it’s something that can’t be erased and can’t be swept away
and it just emanates from them as their selves... and they express it in music... and there is such a power behind
it because it has hundreds and hundreds of peoples souls (interview with author, Vermont, 2005)
For this participant, singing Georgian folk songs offers “a sense of being part of that history and that
culture”. A number of others at that workshop looked to Georgian songs, and their association with the past,
for their healing properties. It was through singing Georgian songs that another woman was able to “awaken a
voice” in her that she had not heard in herself for “centuries”. Perspective came to her when she was able to add