Proetnica Festival at its ninth edition cannot be considered just a simple event anymore. Over 850 representatives of the 20 national ethnic minorities participated at the 9 days ProEtnica Festival, presenting their traditional costumes and folklore, books’ launching, films, concerts, theater shows, workshops where the public can learn the traditional manufacture, etc. During the festival “Agora of Ethnic Communities” was published in four editions. So, ProEtnica is already a tradition.
As one got used in the last nine years, the intercultural festival ProEtnica is the means by which the national minorities and all the other ethnic communities including the new minorities’ representatives (migrants and refugees), present themselves as they wish to be perceived.
The Interethnic Educational Center for Youth, the association organizing the festival, stated that this is a cultural education project aimed to promote and spread ethnic communities’ culture in Romania as a significant element of the national and European patrimony, under the motto “United in Diversity”.
During the 9th edition of the festival, the participants and public could enjoy 9 days and nights of music, dance, book, films, photography exhibitions, manufactures, culinary specialties, having fun and a good time. A little rain in the beginning and then the culture of ethnic communities with nobody missing.
“We have 872 participants: it is a record! 30 organizations, from which 20 representing national minorities, 2 ethno-cultural organizations and one of migrants participated to the festival. The main organizer had six partners from the cultural-scientific field and two cultural organizations. During the 9 days of the festival, the public could enjoy 70 spectacles on the stage of the festival, 10 colloquiums, round tables, symposiums, four films, 10 exhibitions, 12 promotion stands, 12 manufacture stands and five puppet theatre spectacles for children”, explained Volker Reiter, executive director of the Interethnic Educational Center for Youth.
This year’s ProEtnica edition was much more relaxed then the 2008 edition, which was structured just on four days. This year, each morning the small hall of the Sighisoara City Hall hosted conferences and speeches, and spectacles for children organized by the Cultural Center Petre Tutea on the interactive stage. All this time, the ethnic communities’ promotion stands, manufacture stands and other exhibitions were open until 8 p.m.
The most interesting part of the festival began after 8 p.m., when on the Fortress Square stage the public could admire the national minorities’ dance ensembles and several other performers, all of them very well known. The first evening was inaugurated by the Germans from the Banat JA Ensemble, followed by Serb, Hungarian and Aromanian traditional dances.
The Roma dances performed by the “Asul de Trefla” ansamble represented the big attraction of the first evening, accompanied by the seven members of the Craciun Band from “10 Prajini”. Who didn’t want to dance or to listen to folk music, could watch a film about the Serbs’ life and culture at the Blacksmith Tower.
During the next evenings, the public could enjoy the performers of the Albanian, Russian, Tatar, Turkish, Armenian, Jewish, Slovak, Czech, Greek, Ukrainian and Italian communities and of the African migrants’ community.
The big concerts were performed by “Pasarea Colibir”, Maia Morgenstern, Daria Somesan, Dinu Olarasu, Maria Gheorghi, Adrian Ivantichi. Other bands were expected to perform as well: Nightlosers, Desperadi, Nadara. More details about the festival’s program can be found on http://www.divers.ro/focus_ro?wid=37452&func=viewSubmission&sid=10241 www.proetnica.ro. (Mihaela Dumitrascu - DIVERS – www.divers.ro)