Prague, Czech Republic
Mission Title: Gypsy Caravan - Khamoro World Roma Festival '08
Mission By: Jonas Tratz, Sebastian Kern
Mission Finished on Date: 26-05-2008
SCRIPT
- Go to the World Roma Festival and attend the concerts and cultural events all over the city. Document what you see: people’s responses to the cultural events, music performances, art shows, highlighting moments of Roma culture. Show the venues insie and out as well traveling to them through the city. Talk to the director of the festival, Jelena Silajdžić, about the history and the impact of the World Roma Festival. Explore your own relationship to the Roma. Document how this festival changes your ideas about Roma people and culture. Talk to as many people as you can in informal circumstances. Tell a story about your experiences.
TRAVEL BAG
How does a landless international minority carve out a space for itself?
“Gypsy” (or Roma as is the preferred term) is the definition of traveling low cost, and traveling low cost can be hard. In all their travelling, the Roma have long been persecuted as outsiders, enslaved in Romania for half a millennia, murdered, abused, mutilated, sterilized, and derided almost universally. The Roma have had a rough existence to put it mildly. But human rights groups and many of the Roma themselves have been organizing for rights, one such group, SLOVO 21, has organized the Khamoro World Roma Festival as platform to not only feature Roma culture but also to aid in integration of the ethnic minority. Held in Prague and patronized by the Czech government as well as the city, the festival has especial weight there, as not only a country with a large Roma minority but also a history of sterilization and persecution.
Roma culture, especially music, has contributed to many musical styles including flamenco and jazz and hybridized as well with many different genres including punk (Gogol Bordello being a prime example). Though widespread racism persists, this transitory group, so often persecuted, is beginning to integrate and garner some of the respect it deserves.
