Rokeya, photo by Andrea Olarte; Anissa, photo by Joscelyn Ceccorulli
Showcase
When traditions meet synthesizers Rokeya, Anissa
March 5 2026, 7.00pm
Free admission upon registration
Curated by Elasi, the series brings together musicians who are pillars of folk traditions and producers at the forefront of the Italian and international electronic scenes, fostering a dialogue between past and future. Each encounter weaves together stories, instruments, listening sessions, and live performances to explore how technology transforms and accompanies folk music…and vice versa. The journey culminates in a jam session, where roots and experimentation merge into a unique sonic experience.
In this appointment, Rokeya and Anissa lead an exploration devoted to ancient and popular female chants, reimagined as new electronic rituals. Their voices recover intimate and collective memories—passed-down melodies, invocations, work songs—and reshape them through live electronics, timbral manipulation, and contemporary rhythmic structures. The meeting reveals how women’s vocality, historically rooted in domestic, communal, or ceremonial spheres, can take on new and forward-looking forms, becoming living material for immersive soundscapes. The evening alternates moments of conversation with a concert performed for the first time, where tradition, technology, and shared ritual intertwine in a hypnotic, choral experience.
Elasi, a singer-songwriter, composer, and DJ from Alessandria, blends sonic worlds into music that unfolds like stroboscopic matryoshkas of styles, shimmering synthesizer metropolises, and sounds from distant lands.
Rokeya is a London-based artist of Italian-Gallic and Indian origins, active as a performer, selector, and producer. Her practice integrates musical traditions, rituality, and cultural cross-pollinations, creating soundscapes that explore memory, identity, and transformation.
Anissa is a singer-songwriter and performer, and her music is the result of a fusion of different sounds, languages and cultures. She has various musical and theatrical projects to her credit, as well as having performed at national and international festivals and events, including the Festival Culturel Européen in Algiers (Algeria), the Fara Jazz Music Festival, the Adriatico Mediterraneo Festival, the F.I.A.C. Festival des arts et cultures in Agadir (Morocco), La Notte della Taranta, and the IGRAR Festival Ouarzazate in Morocco, among others. As a singing teacher and passionate researcher, Anissa regularly holds workshops dedicated to traditional Mediterranean songs and currently teaches Popular Singing at the G. Braga Conservatory in Teramo.
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