Festival Radical Roma Culture

We invite you to a series of unusual concerts in which traditional and quite contemporary Roma artists will join forces with avant-garde jazzmen and chamber musicians. Is the heart of 21st century music still beating to the rhythm of čhib novels?

In Latcho Drom's film, Roma music and its immediate ancestors and cousins take us from Punjab, through Egypt and Turkey, through Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia to France and Spain. A thousand years, three continents, a variety of musical aesthetics — but clearly connected by a common root. In the stories about the journeys of the Roma community and culture, there is as much documented history as myths — their own and instilled by the exotic imagination of European Romanticism and Modernism. The eminent British violinist Yehudi Menuhin, for example, heard echoes of the intricate modal system of classical Hindustani music in the microtonal improvisations of Romanian Lăutari. It is an ethnographic fantasy rather than a hypothesis, but it perfectly illustrates the unique role of Roma music in modern sound culture — messenger, mediator, depository of ancient knowledge that transcends religious, ethnic or class frameworks. Thanks to Lăutari, we were able to hear, understand and radically change our own music. Because radix is Latin for root.

In the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, did the Lăutari retain the power of musical and social transformation? The protagonists of the Radykalna Kultura Romska festival give credence to this thesis, finding in the Roma heritage the roots of eclectic, post-modern chamber music (Sara Czureja-Łakatosz and Bastard), free-jazz expression (Angrusori) and as committed as ironic feminist hip hop (Niko G. & Kali).

8.08.2026, 18:00,
(concert accompanying Krzysztof Gil's exhibition Nobody Wants You Here)
Niko G. & Cali

15.08.2026, at 18:00
Kitchen Orchestra with Iva Bittová

16.08.2026. at 18:00
Sara Czureja-Lakatoš i Bastarda

Niko G. & Cali

Feminist hip hop duo founded by two actresses of the revolutionary Roma theater Giuvlipen, who since 2014 have been undertaking artistic actions against racism, sexism and the exploitation of underage women. The leader of the theater and musical group, Mihaela Drăgan is an acclaimed actress (currently working at the Maxim Gorky Theater in Berlin), playwright and animator, awarded the prestigious Gilder/Coigney International Theater Award New York in 2017. Niko G. and Kali have recorded one album Techno Witches, which tells the story of a bright future in which Roma cosmonauts gain the upper hand in technological development and exploration of the universe.

Kitchen Orchestra with Iva Bittová

A joint venture between members of the Norwegian free jazz Kitchen Orchestra and Ivy Bittova, a Czech experimental violinist and vocalist with Roma roots,. Founded in 2016, the band functioned for years as Phuterdo Øre and then Angrusori. The source of the musical material of the formation is the collections of researcher Jana Beliová, who for years has been documenting Roma songs that are rarely found outside the Slovak countryside. They were developed by Norwegian composer and improviser Nils Henrik Asheim and Iva Bittová. The group performed in most European countries and recorded one album. He will arrive in Poland in a squad of 6:

Gjertrud Økland - violin
Ståle Birkeland - percussion
Johan Frøvik Egdetveit - accordion
Petter Frost Fadnes - saxophone
Signe Irene Time - vocals
Iva Bittova - violin, vocals

Sara Czureja-Lakatos

Romani singer and cymbal player, after her father she comes from the group Górska Roma, and after her mother from the group Polska Roma. She took lessons in playing the cymbals from the Slovak master Józef Klempar. The artist toured with the Tatra Roma band, founded by her father, violinist-virtuoso Mikosz Deki Czureja. They performed throughout Poland, the United States and Spain. As a soloist, she performed with the Kalisz Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra and represented Poland at the IX International Festival Mediterrania, the Traditional Performing Arts Fair in Manresa.

Co-financed from the funds of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund — a state special purpose fund, as part of the “Music” program, implemented by the National Institute of Music and Dance.

Organizer:

Co-financed by: