Horkeshkart in Skopje!

In the Old Bazzar the curious thing was that the predominantly ethnic Albanian population react very openly on the Serbian language. On the apology by the group that would sing mainly in Serbian, some shout "Sing freely we understand everything". Later, they even ask to join the chorus under condition to sing a song by Dragana Mirkovic, famous serbian turbo folk diva.


One of the key activities that should've been realized in September, the coming of the group Shkart from Belgrade, was realized in October. It was postponed for a certain time because of the change in plans of the group Shkart and because of providing better logistics.
The coming of Shart and their chorus called Horkeshkart was a complex event that arouse much interest. It took place in four towns (Skopje, Bitola, Struga and Ohrid) and eight public spaces (Cultural centre Tochka, Old Bazzar, Faculty of Architecture - Skopje; House of Culture and Shirok Sokak in Bitola; The city square in Struga; city market and House of Culture in Ohrid. The tour was held from 17^{th to 21st October. The chorus consisted by 25 members was joined by participants from the local community.}

The coming of the group Shkart was very important event because our cultural and public scene had rare opportunity to see announcement of social position through artistic engagement, something that is often practiced in the neighbouring countries. Even if such an artistic event happen it is alaways in Skopje, due to the centralised state policy. By organising this event we really managed to "change the policy".

The tour of Shkart in the open as well as the closed spaces drew much attention by the public. In the close spaces we have around 60-90 audience (especially crowd it was in Bitola and on the Faculty of Architecture) while on the open space aroun 100-120. The most interesting reactions were on the Old Bazzar in Skopje and on the green market in Ohrid. In the Old Bazzar the curious thing was that the predominantly ethnic Albanian population react very openly on the Serbian language. On the apology by the group that would sing mainly in Serbian, some shout "Sing freely we understand everything". Later, they even ask to join the chorus under condition to sing a song by Dragana Mirkovic, famous serbian turbo folk diva.

In Ohrid the reactions were from "get lost from my selling stand", to "come and promote my plastics" (on the song "Plastics"). The coldest reaction was in Struga on the square, were people who passed the streets in large amount did not turn and show interest, not even stop a while. It was because the extremellu delicate ethmic tension that have occured recently. However, we think that it was good to show there e presence of something that deffers of the everydaylife, something that migfht be the paradigma for the new way of creating the comynity.

In Ohrid we also did a promotion on the campaign and the new issue of Margina togheter with the CD from the local Ohrid band Ventolin. The band ended the promotion and make a hilarious athmosphere among the local fans. The promotion of our campaign material, rouse much interest among the local audience, they were very atracted by the graphical design and the whole visual set and it was nice overture for our verbal introduction of the project.

In Bitola Horkeshkart had concert on the open, on Shirok Sokak. It was realy amazing how big was the level of interes. In the evening, in the House of Culture, we organize a multilevel event:
- video presentation of the Shkart's work, with lecture
- oncert of Horkeshart
- presentation of the work of one of the local organizers promotion of the project Confluent Margins and of the newe issue of Margina

The reaction of the local comunity was really encourange.
The tour in Struga, Ohrid and Bitola was organised in cooperation with our partners: Houses of culture from Struga, Ohrid and Bitola, NGO Media Artes (Ohrid), MKC, Elementi, SRU (Bitola).