Concert, screening at Prague’s Lucerna to mark day against racism
March 21st is the International Day for the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination and to mark the occasion organisers from Opona, a non-profit
NGO, have helped put together an exhibition, screening and concert to take
place on Wednesday afternoon and evening at Prague’s Lucerna. Several
notable Czech artists, including Ester Kočičková Xindl X, and the Tap
Tap are taking part.
In parts of the Czech Republic racism remains a difficult and persistent
problem, most recently in the Šluknov area in northern Bohemia, where
anti-Roma rallies were organised with alarming regularity last autumn by
right-wing extremists. As a result, a recent study published by experts at
Masaryk University found, rhetoric usually used by neo-Nazis was finding
greater currency among some residents, including local politicians. To send
a signal against hatred and intolerance on March 21st, Opona has put
together a number of events at Prague’s Lucerna theatre, café, and music
bar just off of Wenceslas Square. These include an exhibition, a film
screening and concert. Radio Prague spoke to Opona’s Pavla Kantnerová:
“We got in touch with the group the TAP TAP, whose members are
disabled, and have experience with prejudice or discrimination, if not
racism, of their own. Ester Kočičkova will take to the stage to perform
her “Aryan folk song” which has the chorus ‘Thank goodness they
always serve us blondes’!
"Another guest will be singer Tonya Graves with a new version of
Michael
Jackson’s Black or White, and last but not least there will be
performances by
Jarda Svoboda from Traband and Markéta Krausová from Láska vole who
will sing songs about prejudices which we live with. Xindl X will also
perform material.”
Also in Wednesday’s programme are two screenings of The Last Flight of
Petr Ginz – the story of a remarkable Czechoslovak Jewish boy who died in
the Holocaust whose story has become known to millions. Pavla Kantnerová
again:
“Petr Ginz was a very talented young man: at 14 he had completed many
pictures and paintings and wrote stories and several novels, reflecting
life under the Nazis, one of which was allegorical. In 2003, his story
became more widely-known when Israel’s first astronaut took one of his
drawings with him to space aboard the space shuttle. Upon return, the
shuttle, the Columbia, suffered disaster and was destroyed. All those
aboard, and of course the picture, were lost. It also happened on what
would have been Petr Ginz’s 75th birthday. The story led to his diaries
being rediscovered and as a result this film was made.”
If you’re interested in either the screening or the concert at Lucerna
on Wednesday, visit oponaops.eu.
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