{"id":696,"date":"2012-02-13T13:39:16","date_gmt":"2012-02-13T11:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zudro.sk\/?p=696"},"modified":"2012-02-13T13:39:41","modified_gmt":"2012-02-13T11:39:41","slug":"the-slovak-spectator-new-cd-and-film-features-rom-pop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stare.zudro.sk\/?p=696","title":{"rendered":"The Slovak Spectator: New CD and film features \u2018Rom-pop\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u010cl\u00e1nok o nov\u00fdch r\u00f3mskych pies\u0148ach (Neve gi\u013ea), starod\u00e1vnych pies\u0148ach\u00a0(Phurikane gi\u013ea) i o \u010fal\u0161om projekte \u017dudra\u00a0afterPhurikane n\u00e1jdete v <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/spectator.sme.sk\/articles\/view\/45064\/9\/new_cd_and_film_features_rom_pop.html\">The Slovak Spectator<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h2><!--more--><\/h2>\n<p>UNDERNEATH mainstream culture there often is a \u201cstream below the stream\u201d said filmmaker Martin \u0160ul\u00edk when speaking about his brother\u2019s most recent documentary film about Roma culture \u2013 and a set of Roma songs \u2013 called Neve gi\u013ea. \u0160ul\u00edk specifically likened \u2018Rom-pop music\u2019 to the title of Slovak author Du\u0161an Du\u0161ek\u2019s short story Potok pod potokom (The Stream Below the Stream).<\/p>\n<p>Neve gi\u013ea, or New Roma Songs, is a project initiated by Jana Beli\u0161ov\u00e1 and its DVD\/MP3 CD and songbook were \u201cbaptised\u201d and released to the public shortly before Christmas. This is Beli\u0161ov\u00e1\u2019s fifth project documenting Roma music and unlike her previous projects, which preserved old Roma songs \u2013 or phurikane gi\u013ea in Roma \u2013 her recent project recorded popular, contemporary songs that mushroomed in popularity in Roma communities.<\/p>\n<p>Throughout 2009 and 2010, individuals associated with Beli\u0161ov\u00e1\u2019s \u017dudro civic association travelled to about 80 Roma communities in Slovakia to record the popular music blooming in their villages and towns. Beli\u0161ov\u00e1\u2019s team included Marek \u0160ul\u00edk, Martin\u2019s brother, who served as film editor and was also behind the camera &#8211; alternating with Jana Bu\u010dkov\u00e1 &#8211; while the documentary about the recording project was filmed.<\/p>\n<h3>Different Rom-pop genres<\/h3>\n<p>\u201cThe new Roma songs can be divided into \u2018disco\u2019 music meant for dancing and \u2018slow schmaltz\u2019 songs meant for listening. But there is also a division in the atmosphere of the songs and when analysing the lyrics we found that many more songs are those sad ones which resemble the ancient songs, Phurikane gi\u013ea,\u201d Beli\u0161ov\u00e1 told The Slovak Spectator.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe old songs changed their melodies into schmaltz tunes but the essence remained the same. Another thing that struck me was that Rom-pop, although hard to define and very varied, was dominated by men \u2013 both as musicians and as singers. So it was energising and refreshing to find women singing and playing this genre,\u201d Beli\u0161ov\u00e1 said at the release of the CD on December 17 at the KC Dunaj culture hub in Bratislava. She also invited three of the women musicians, who she called \u201crefreshments\u201d, to play onstage as the Romka band. Excerpts from the documentary film were screened that evening as well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is good that a songbook is included in the project,\u201d Marek \u0160ul\u00edk told The Slovak Spectator, \u201cas in this way the majority population can also read the lyrics, understand them, and maybe also try to sing along.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u0160ul\u00edk said that the project had fully occupied him for two years but that he was happy to have been part of it, saying that it was different from a typical documentary project that tries to analyse or understand something. He called it instead \u201ca documenting project\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>He also spoke about the personal challenges he faced: \u201cWhen on the road in this way, you are put in front of yourself, confronted with yourself, and suddenly you find that you have numerous prejudices, fears; so you are forced to explore yourself and find out when it is good to be afraid and when not. And the longer you work with Roma and the longer you keep going into their community, the more you come to like them and understand their problems, the problems often instilled by this majority society, and in the end you find out you have no solution at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Beli\u0161ov\u00e1 explained to The Slovak Spectator that her projects are a combination of her professional interests, as she is a university graduate in ethnography and music, as well as her personal past and her fascination with Roma culture and music.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs a child, I used to go to my grandma\u2019s village, \u017deh\u0148a, and there were just a few non-Roma kids. The non-Roma kids were more interested in preserving cherries while the Roma children were more interested in plucking them. Of course, I befriended the Roma and I also noticed the beautiful music coming at night from their part of the village,\u201d Beli\u0161ov\u00e1 said. She added that as part of her university studies she sought to collect traditional folk songs from the Gemer region and found out that someone had already recorded almost all of the 400 songs she had laboriously collected.<\/p>\n<p>But Beli\u0161ov\u00e1 added there had been little systematic research of traditional Roma songs other than by Hungarian or Czech musicologists \u201cso I applied for a grant from the Open Society Institute (currently the Open Society Foundation), was successful at the second shot, and started working. And then, somehow, one thing led to another, one project stemmed from the previous one\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Preserving a disappearing culture<\/h3>\n<p>The Phurikane gi\u013ea project included a travel book or diary started by Zuzana Moj\u017ei\u0161ov\u00e1 and completed by Beli\u0161ov\u00e1, accompanied by photos by Daniela Rusnokov\u00e1. The first part of the project included old, sad songs and the next, Hojna nejna, focused on dance tunes or czardas. Two other small projects ended with the release of CDs with Roma Christmas songs and children\u2019s songs.<\/p>\n<p>The musicians involved with Phurikane gi\u013ea changed over the course of time, Beli\u0161ov\u00e1 said, but several bands and individual musicians were stable elements throughout the project. She added that the next logical step for her was to approach professional musicians and ask them to cooperate with the project and this led to the AfterPhurikane project, which now seems to have a life of its own.<\/p>\n<p>Beli\u0161ov\u00e1 commented that while Neve gi\u013ea maps contemporary music of Roma communities, often influenced by Slovak music or by world and ethno music from regions such as the Balkans, her future plans include a collection of religious songs. She noted that all of the songbooks and other printed materials that accompany her CDs and DVDs have an English version.<\/p>\n<p>Martin \u0160ul\u00edk spoke at the DVD\u2019s launch about how he viewed the importance of Neve gi\u013ea and Beli\u0161ov\u00e1\u2019s past projects: \u201cYou come to understand that it is not only important to record old, disappearing songs but also the new ones that keep coming and going, changing with the locality and the changing mood and taste of audiences. This is a whole subculture, worthy of discovering and enjoying. And of course, the film can help the majority society enter the interior of Roma homes, perhaps for the first time ever, and find that the residents might be poor but their homes are clean and cosy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Marek \u0160ul\u00edk added that he thinks Beli\u0161ov\u00e1 is conductin<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
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