45TH INTERNATIONAL FOLKLORE FESTIVAL

20 – 24 July, 2011

The Festival’s central program will feature folklore groups of emigrant Croats from other continents and Croats from European countries presenting the various ways in which they safeguard and present music and dance heritage. Special focus will be put on the contacts between different peoples and cultures, their mutual influences and specific forms resulting from the new environment, the interaction between the immigrant and native cultures as well as the cultures of other immigrant groups. The Festival will also include folklore groups both from Croatia and from other countries.Side events (i.e. exhibitions, music and dance workshops, folk church music and world music concerts, traditional handicrafts and souvenirs fair) will accompany the main event taking place on Festival stages.

There are many heritage and folklore groups, music and dance ensembles among Croatian emigrants that vary significantly by their membership, repertoire,

and organization structure. Many emigrant folklore groups are modeled on Croatian amateur folklore organization and therefore work closely with music and dance teachers from Croatia or educate their own future experts and teachers in Croatia. This cooperation usually results in partial transfer of repertoire which is often focused on the variety of music and dance tradition from all over Croatia. In those communities where group members originate from different parts of Croatia and sometimes even belong to different generations of emigrants that kind of focus is especially beneficial.

Other emigrant groups are more of a local character since their members come from a specific region or local community. Their repertoire is often focused on the regional tradition they originated from. It is not rare that amateur music and dance groups, especially folklore groups, gather immigrants of different origins, various ethnic and cultural traditions, which results in the exchange of cultural influences and the creation of new forms of amateur culture within the country they share as their new home.

The objective of the 45th International Folklore Festival in Zagreb is to point out the relationship of Croatian emigrants to the country and culture of their origin and their simultaneous integration into the society and cultural framework of their new home. The Festival organizers hope that the Festival will not attract only the participants of the official program, but also numerous members of other emigrant folklore groups to perform in the Festival and have the opportunity to participate in music and dance workshops.

Zorica Vitez, PhD