World Roma Festival Khamoro

Khamoro festival is one of the biggest interdisciplinary festivals of professional Roma culture in the world which has been organized by NGO Slovo 21 and Studio Production Saga, Inc. in Prague since 1999. The aim of the festival is to show richness and variety of Roma culture and art, to create dialogue between Roma minority and the majority society and to contribute to successful integration of Roma in Czech society through culture and art. The festival consists of rich, diverse cultural programme, concretely of musical (and dance), accompanying and professional programme. It offers unique concerts of professional Roma groups from all over the world, as well as putting on exhibitions, theater plays, literary events (story-tellings, public readings), movie screenings, live art performances, Children‘s day, parade through the city center etc. Each year there are around 300 artists performing, 25 events conducted visited by around 10 000 people (from professional and general public) while cooperating with more than 20 organizations/institutions.

In 2020, due to COVID-19 pandemic, the festival events took place throughout the whole second half of the year. We put emphasis on cooperation with other cultural festivals (etc. Praha žije hudbou/Prague Music Festival), production of live events presenting Czech and foreign artists that took place in Prague and outside the capital of the Czech Republic as well and especially on production of online events – live concerts streaming, streaming of literary events and International conference on Roma literature etc. In 2020, the festival was visited/seen by more than 170 000 persons.

In 2021 you can look forward to 3 concerts of traditional Roma music involving 7 performing bands, 2 gypsy jazz concerts, 1 concert of contemporary Roma music (open air; presenting contemporary music styles such as funk, hip-hop in Roma style), 1 concert of classical music inspired by Roma motives, 2 exhibitions, 2 public readings, 2 interactive street art performances, 2 theater performances, an artist parade through city, Children’s Day event, a show of feature and documentary films with a Roma theme, 1day festival in Rokycany and in Náchod city, International Conference on Roma Contemporary Arts, Small summer school (weekly school about Roma music for Czech and international students of ethnomusicology in collaboration with Charles University), Khamoro Kher – 3day cultural program for children from orphanages and Khamoro Shares Experience (training for young Roma in cultural management). We expect around 300 artists performing, 25 events to be conducted and visited/seen by around 60 000 people (depending on no. of online events).

Note: The final programme of the festival may vary due to COVID-19 pandemic and promulgated government regulations.