The Prague Post
September 7th, 2008
Endowment Fund     Business Listings ONLINE      Reservations      Classifieds    Subscriptions
Hotel Prague Centre

Home » Archives » Tempo

Diverse Roma culture takes center stage in Prague

Khamoro marks its 10th year with music, dance, art and films from many lands

By Darrell Jónsson
For The Prague Post
May 21st, 2008 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Macedonian Gypsy queen Esma Redžepova in the annual parade through Prague.
enlarge
Khamoro


When: May 25-31
Where: Various venues
Tickets: 200-460 Kč, available through Ticketstream and at the venues
For daily performances, see the Calendar listings in Night & Day;
for a complete schedule, check
www.khamoro.cz
Every year for one week, Prague becomes the colorful crossroads of a European culture whose songs know no borders. Starting Sunday, this year’s Khamoro celebration of international Roma (Gypsy) culture features seven days of concerts, films, exhibits, workshops, seminars and the traditional parade through the city center.
Musical highlights include Gypsy jazz from Holland’s Basily and France’s Angelo Debarre, and the evocative voice of Esma Redžepova from the Euro-Islamic crossroads of Macedonia. Contemporary Czech Roma artists like Gulo Čar and Bengas will bring their fresh, local currency to the mix. And the world-class Andalusian dance troupe Puerto Flamenco is returning, having had audiences rushing the stage and screaming with delight last year.
“For us, last year’s Khamoro festival was like a door to another world, and we are grateful to have entered it,” says Puerto Flamenco dancer and spokeswoman Francesca Grima. Her studio is in Seville’s Triana, a legendary district considered by many to be the epicenter of flamenco, a dance style that shares much with Roma musical heritage. “This is a festival that revolves around music and the lifestyle of people in love with the music at its core.”
This core has run right through the center of the Czech landscape since at least the Middle Ages. For the likes of Czech photographer and anthropologist Eva Davidová, who set out in the 1950s to document and bring Czech Roma culture to a wider audience, the musical phenomena is international. “Roma are known in many countries as superlative musicians and singers,” she says. “Though they have been influenced by the countries where they settled, at the same time they have influenced the national folk music of many countries, such as Hungary, Spain, Russia and the Balkan states.”
The roots and influences of Roma music can be found in many places, from the classical works of Franz Liszt to the riffs of Black Sabbath. There are few settings where this symbiosis is better-defined than Spain, where Grima says, “There is an inseparable link between flamenco and Gitano culture — one wouldn’t have existed without the other. Flamenco is a singularly Andalusian phenomenon, inseparable from its music and culture. Roma people who settled in Andalusia became Gitanos; their integration into the society is practically seamless, and essential to a general understanding of the Andalusian spirit.”
Still, even with the growing popularity of Roma-infused flamenco and Balkan brass music, Roma music still remains indecipherable for many people in the way that 19th-century composer Ference Liszt described it: “rhythms and harmonies … appearing to us as emanating from another planet.”
Today, more detailed comparisons are possible. “There is an emphasis on the rhythm and swing, expressiveness of emotions, rawness and a cathartic element to singing, elements of footwork, clapping and body-slapping, all very similar to other genres of Roma music,” Grima says of her troupe’s work. “One of the main and most evident differences is the development of complex rhythmical structures and time signatures of 12/8, and the prominence of dance as the leading element. To an audience used to beats of 2/4 and 4/4, this may come as an overwhelming amount of breaks, groove changes, accelerations and powerful endings that follow a mysterious code. [But] once you pass this barrier, you discover a whole universe of profound subtleties.”
Davidová, who will be exhibiting her photographs and speaking at the festival’s ethnomusicology seminar, sees perceptions in the region’s non-Roma community changing. When she started her work, Davidová says, “The majority of the non-Roma community knew Roma only as nomadic travelers, or as a different people living in separate communities. If they knew part of their music culture, it was only from the wine rooms or operettas. Their real music and culture was not very well known at all.”
But as the music grew and spread, it helped break down barriers. “It changed when the first Roma bands and groups, television and radio broadcasts and folk festivals began to crop up,” Davidová says. “Then some of their songs began to be issued on cassettes and other media. Now, during the last 10 years, world festivals like Khamoro bring a wider possibility to know Roma music and dance from different countries and groups from all over the world.”
Next week’s festival will give Prague audiences an opportunity to see many facets of one of Europe’s most lustrous musical diamonds. For those interested in world music, jazz or folk, there will be no shortage of fascinating intersections to be found at Jazz Club Reduta, Popocafépetl, Kampa Museum and other venues. At the heart of the festival is the parade at noon Thursday, May 29, through Old Town, with its exuberant display of diversified human spirit.
The only thing wrong with Khamoro is that its musical magic comes only once a year. The good news is that dance workshops will be held at Studio Zamba for those who wish to launch their own journey into the fascinating world of Roma dance and music.

Darrell Jónsson can be reached at tempo@praguepost.com


Other articles in Tempo (21/05/2008):

Browse the Current Issue

If you enjoyed this article, why don't you subscribe to the print version!
We accept secure online transactions provided by PayPal and Moneybookers

Be the first to add a comment!


Full Name: *
City: *
E-mail: **
This comment can be published in the print version of The Prague Post
Enter the text on the right:
 visual captcha
Comment: *
* Required field. In order to be approved for display, comments must have a first and last name and a city.
** E-mails are required and will only be used for internal purposes.

Most visited in Business Listings

Hotel booking
The Prague Post Online contains a selection of articles that have been printed in
The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper published in the Czech Republic.
To subscribe to the print paper, click here.
Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.