"Plai" festival in Timisoara

PLAI Festival 2008 - Tour of the world, without a visa, in about 6 months or so ...
PLAI Festival means culture without a visa, movement with no restrictions, sound with no compromises and 2008 brings the third round of this adventure. The third edition of PLAI Festival, (12-14 September, Banat Village Museum, Timisoara, Romania), will bring together fantastic world music and Romanian traditional craftwork, the youngest and their parents, dance workshops and crash language courses, theatre and debates and joggling, people from all over the Romania and abroad, all brought together by the same pleasure of discovering each other.

Depth of feeling: Mariza’s fado (Portugal)Mariza is of Mozambican roots, but the place which really carved fado music into her heart, the place where she grew up, is Portugal. Fado, a Portuguese word which translates as “fate”, is the name of nostalgia itself. Longing for a departed loved one, longing for a faraway home, longing for the sake of longing, this is what fado music is. Mariza, the world’s most popular fado singer, will bring to PLAI Festival all of the humanity and beauty of this traditional Portuguese music, a piece of Portugal itself.

Madly alive’n’kickin: Fanfare Ciocarlia (Romania)Winners of the 2006 BBC Radio World Music Awards, Fanfare Ciocarlia are a band of 12 amazing Rroma brass players from a village of North-East Romania. Incredibly vivid rhythms and crowds of public who cannot but dance to their firy Gypsy songs mixed with Romanian, Turkish, Macedonian or Bulgarian tunes – this is what Fanfare Ciocarlia is about. The madness of the dance, the authentic good mood they share will bring us closer to the essence, closer to sheer multiculturalism, closer to one another.

More information on www.plai.ro