TIRANA, Feb. 18 – Preparations for the tenth edition of the Gjirokastra folklore festival, one of the most important cultural heritage events held in the southern UNESCO town regularly held every five years, are underway with the selection of representative groups from the country’s 12 regions.
The Culture Ministry has also announced the festival, initially scheduled for April, has been postponed for May 10 to 16, 2015 because of severe weather conditions in some remote areas of the country and to give participant groups more time during the preparation stage.
“The best groups at a regional level have been selected after introductory concerts and a new joint concert will be held to select the final participant groups,” says the Culture Ministry.
Organizers say ethno choreographers from the northeastern region of Tropoja have documented three rare local musical rituals which they are set to perform in Gjirokastra.
Artists from Albania, the region and the Albanian Diaspora will participate in the tenth edition of the Gjirokastra folklore festival which has been regularly held every five years since the late 1960s under communism.
“This event will be the best presentation of the Albanian traditions, culture and folklore through traditional values introduced through folklore costumes, music, lyrics and many other events,” says the Culture Ministry about the festival which serves to protect and promote the non-material cultural heritage.
“The organization of the National Folklore Festival in 2015 in Gjirokastra targets the preservation, protection and promotion of our best values in non-material heritage, ethno-musical, ethno-chorographical, ethnographic, folklore costumes and instruments, rites, traditions, crafts, culinary values established since centuries,” Culture Minister Mirela Kumbaro has said.
The festival will showcase 12 groups representing Albania’s regions, three groups from Kosovo, two from Albanians in Macedonia and one from the Albanian minority in Montenegro. Albanian bands in Italy, the United States, Greece, Turkey and Switzerland will also participate in the festival.
The Western Balkans Geotourism Mapguide describes the festival as the best offering of Albanian traditions, including music, instruments, folk art and colourful costumes. “One of the highlights of this festival is the iso-poliphony style of Albanian folk singing, which has been selected by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage.”
The local fortress and the town’s historic centre, both part of the UNESCO World Heritage list, will be the two venues of the festival which returns after its last 2009 edition.
Inscribed on UNESCO as a rare example of an architectural character typical of the Ottoman period, Gjirokastra, situated in the Drinos river valley in southern Albania, features a series of outstanding two-story houses which were developed in the 17th century. The town also retains a bazaar, an 18th-century mosque and two churches of the same period. The 13th-century citadel provides the focal point of the town with its typical tower houses.
