Charismatic Czech-Romany singer Ida Kelarova talks about a documentary on her life and work
Thursday saw the Prague premiere of a fascinating documentary film, made by the Austrian director Stephan Settele. The film, called "Gilaven! Sing!" looks at the life and work of one of the most charismatic of all Czech performers, the half Czech, half Romany singer, Ida Kelarova. As well as engaging audiences as a hugely gifted and dynamic performer in her own right, Ida Kelarova has won international acclaim for her musical workshops, where she helps people to find ways of releasing their emotions into song. She has a fundamental belief that everyone can sing and that singing is bound up with something far deeper within you. In the course of her work Ida Kelarova has become something of an ambassador of Romany culture, drawing attention to its riches, and also to the needs of Central Europe's largest and most maligned ethnic minority. Here Ida tells us something about Stephan Settele's film, which tries to map some of her work.
"This film has been created because I travel a lot around the world, give workshops, encourage people to sing, to open the door for the Gypsy culture. I've been teaching Gypsy songs for the last over twenty years around Europe, to concentrate on opening the emotions to the voice and so on. So it became very popular and very intensive work for me for the last twenty years.
"So in Austria there was one director, Stephan Settele, who said, 'I would like to follow you and make a documentary.' So he followed us for two years, and because we don't just do concerts or workshops around the world, but we also do charity work, we go to the settlements and talk to Roma people. For example, in one settlement we built toilets, because, believe it or not, they didn't even have toilets, or we collected some clothes to bring to the children because they didn't have shoes. We make a children's camp in summer where we invite Roma children from children's homes to remind them of their roots and to create for them really creative workshops. Really many different things. So he followed and he made, I think, a beautiful film.
And a reminder again that the film - which is in a mixture of Romani, Czech and German - is called "Gilaven! Sing!" It was directed by Stephan Settele and was made as a co-production between the German stations 3 SAT and MDR. Next week Ida leaves for a two-week tour of Israel.
