SERBIA: Roma teenagers mix hip hop with traditional Gipsy music, expressing feelings of the most vulnerable and discriminated minority in Serbia

Record ID: 563655

  • Title: SERBIA: Roma teenagers mix hip hop with traditional Gipsy music, expressing feelings of the most vulnerable and discriminated minority in Serbia
  • Date: 14th March 2012
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF ROMA DANCING AND SINGING ROMA CHEERING
  • Embargoed: 29th March 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Serbia, Serbia
  • Country: Serbia
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVA4PJFB6QN2478MU5IQ3RGIAUN
  • Story Text: Despite warm reception by international audiences teenagers from Serbian Roma band GRUBB or 'Gypsy Roma Urban Balkan Beats' are still fighting prejudice and discrimination at home.
    The dance group which rehearses in an abandoned and dilapidated communist-era factory in the Serbian capital, combines traditional Roma tunes with modern hip-hop beats to highlight the plight of Roma, one of Europe's most discriminated ethnic groups.
    "Well, now people look at us differently, they don't say anymore 'watch out, there are Gipsies' as they used to say, and that's a change, and I am very glad because they look at us differently," Roma dancer Emina Duda told Reuters.
    The play they rehearse is also a story about the Roma or Gypsy minority in the 7.3 million-strong Serbia. Their numbers officially stand at about 100,000, but the real figure is as much as four times higher as most of them have never received ID and have no permanent address.
    "First of all with this musical we want to show that we, Roma, know how to achieve things, we can sing, we can dance, not only to go on streets begging, being dirty, stealing. And it's very important for us to show who and what we are," said dancer Danijel Rasitovic.
    In the play, the 13 actors, singers and dancers show the audience stereotypes they often face. One message flashing onto the huge screen says 'all Roma people are thieves', while the performers ask the audience if they have ever stolen anything. Many spectators raise their hands and then the performers respond with a song 'Don't say only Gypsies are stealing.' In another part of the play called 'Cardboard Child', they tell the story of cardboard towns, the notorious rats-infested Belgrade Roma slums.
    The latest show premiered in Belgrade last May and has since played monthly in the Serbian capital. Its international success came after the performance in London last summer, followed by a show at the Montreal international jazz festival that ended with standing ovation.
    This year group is going back to Montreal and will also debut at the Lincoln Center in New York.
    Three years ago the group, supported by Britain's RPoint charity which helps Roma in Serbia, has convinced Canadian actor and director Serge Denouncourt to join them and direct the show.
    "It's kind of the American dream, because I am sure when that began, they didn't believe me, that that will happen, and I kind of didn't believe me too. I was trying to give them open ..., to give them courage, but I thought: well, we will never go to New York, we will never go to Paris, we will never be picked two times in a row ... two years in a row for the Montreal jazz festival, and that is happening because of lot of work, because of their talent, but mainly because their will to talk to the world, to say "Can we - Roma or Gypsy, whatever - can we talk to you about ourselves, instead of the world trashing us. We just want to open a conversation, dialogue with you, is it possible?" It was quite possible last summer, it's less difficult in America than it is in Europe, but we are working hard. We think that the dialogue will be open," Denouncourt told during rehearsal.
    The GRUBB have also participated in Serbia's Got Talent TV show which they had abandoned in semi-finals on order to go to Montreal.
    But dancing in the show is not fun and play only. RPoint insists that all GRUBB members attend school regularly and have good grades.
    Although as many as 86 percent of Roma children now finish elementary school, very few study further and only a fraction goes to university.
    Persecuted over the centuries, hundreds of thousands of Roma were killed or sent to concentration camps during the WWII. Many died or became refugees during the bloody breakup of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
    The position of Roma minority in Serbia has improved little since the ousting of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Unemployment and crime is rampant. Many children lack basic healthcare.
    Attacks on Roma and their settlements by Serb ultranationalists and hooligans are frequent and several people died since 2000.
    However, as part of Serbia's bid to join the European Union and improve its human rights record, the authorities promise to pay more attention to Roma problems.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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