music and people

What music do you dance to? On May 20. we were witnesses of an interesting event, which reveals a lot about the connection of the local people to cultural diversity: There was a festival at the weekend (19^th-20^th). At night a stage was built on a big square next to the mobile fun-fair. On the stage, a female singer was singing popular and traditional Spanish songs in Spanish. After these came the performance of a flamenco group.

The target audience of the performance was obviously those 20-30 pensioners who were sitting on some benches placed opposite the stage. They were probably Spanish inhabitants of the neighbourhood. They were minority, as we could see. The majority of visitors were the inhabitants of Maghrebi or Central-African origin. They were obviously uninterested in the performance. In contrast to the Spanish pensioners they were hundreds, standing at the sides of the square, on the square, also behind the stage at the fun-fair. And of course, in front of the “locutoria”. Especially teens (boys more), mums (who usually could not be seen in these streets during the day) and their little children. The performance on the stage drew the attention of only a couple of them.