Khamoro, the biggest Romani cultural festival in the world, starts 25 May in Prague
Prague is preparing for a week full of Romani culture, dance, and music. Khamoro, the biggest Romani cultural festival in the world, starts on Sunday, 25 May, bringing artists from all over Europe to the metropolis with a colorful program full of concerts, discussions, and film screenings.
Nikolas Ferenc, press spokesperson for the festival, has informed news server Romea.cz of the event. Prague will transform into the center of Romani culture starting Sunday, 25 May.
The 27th annual Khamoro World Romani Festival is produced by Slovo 21 and Studio Production Saga. The weeklong marathon offers seven evenings of music from various genres, documentary films, literary readings, a parade by Romani artists through the city center, and a conference on the subject of domestic violence within the Romani community in the Czech Republic.
The festival kicks off on Sunday with the Khamoro party at the Gauč venue at the Exhibition Grounds (Výstaviště). The open-air concert features favorite performers from the domestic scene – the singer “Tessie” Ondičová, the group Ritmo Gitano, and the singer Thomas.
Week of concerts, défilé through the center of Prague, stars of the Romani scene from all over Europe
Monday and Tuesday are for “gypsy jazz”, with concerts in the Jazz Dock starting with the 18-year-old Milan “Angelo” Novák, an up-and-coming jazz star. On Wednesday the audience can look forward to a free concert by KLAJAZZROM, which offers an untraditional fusion of classical, jazz, and Romani music.
The concerts on Thursday and Friday at La Fabrice will belong to traditional Romani music and are the festival’s biggest attraction every year. “Khamoro’s musical program offers the best that the music of Romani people from all corners of the world has to offer – an arresting flamenco show, energetic Balkan brass band, or the čapáš of the Vlax Roma. There will also be the songs of the Russian Roma, which you all know from the film Queen of the Gypsies, as well as Romani traditional cimbalom music,” the main dramaturg and producer of the festival, Džemil Silajdžić, told news server Romea.cz.
Apart from local Romani musicians, performers will come to Prague from France, Hungary, Italy, Serbia, Spain and, for the first time in festival history, Greece. People will be able to see all of the traditional bands perform when their members parade through Prague’s historical center starting Friday at high noon on Wenceslas Square.
On Saturday night, all of the groups will perform at the closing gala concert in the SaSaZu club.
The festival is not just about music, but presents research on domestic violence
“Khamoro is far from just about music, though. Almost 20 side events are part of the program, too. Among other things we are preparing the Czech premiere of a documentary film about one of the most iconic figures in film history, Charlie Chaplin. Although the legendary comic and director is known to the whole world, very few people know he had Romani roots,” Ferenc explained.
Part of the expert program will also be a panel discussion called “Fighting Antigypsyism through Culture”, which opens up the subject of the role to be played by arts and culture in combating discrimination and prejudice. Thirty experts from all over the world will attend that event.
At the mini-conference called “Speak Up”, representatives of Slovo 21 will present the results of the first survey of the Romani community in the Czech Republic ever conducted about domestic violence. “Domestic violence committed against women unfortunately exists in all societies and cultures, but in the Romani environment it has its specific features. These range from the deeply-rooted stereotypes which say women are obliged to protect their families no matter the price, to the patriarchal structure of the family that attributes the dominant position to men and roles which are subservient to women,” Claudie Laburdová of Slovo 21 told news server Romea.cz.
Khamoro is the biggest Romani cultural festival in the world. Its events are annually visited by roughly 10,000 people.
During the 26 years of the festival’s existence, more than 270 bands from 40 countries have performed here. From the start it has been supported by patrons including the late Czech President Václav Havel (1936-2011).
Khamoro holds the prestigious EFFE Label prize, Europe’s mark of quality. This year the festival is being held under the auspices of Czech Culture Minister Martin Baxa and the Czech Government Commissioner for Roma Minority Affairs Lucie Fuková.
