The relationships with the country, the people and within the Greek community itself are so diverse that two years ago it was time to introduce a new festival at Werksviertel-Mitte.
Zamas, for the second time, began again this year, on June 15, at the Container Collective. If you only had a coffee for breakfast, you were in the right place. In the early afternoon, you might have tried olive oil with white bread at the stand where Panos Doumakis, organizer of the festival, was sitting with his children. But then it was an important tip from Chiara Scholz, the charming festival supervisor from eventfabrik, to use the Greek BBQ sandwich, the souflaki in a pastry coating, as the basis for later drinks next to the large open-air stage.
Next to the stands with folkloristic items, in the Atelier Valérie, Sofia Arpatzoglou explained her auratically radiant high formats with imprints of human bodies: on the one hand, the imprint bears witness to the individual character, on the other hand, in general, to the coming and going of people and their return.
Gypsy swing sounds mingled with the smells above the stands. With accordion, guitar and bass, the trio “Acoustic Caravan” reminded us of Django Reinhardt, the legend.
Vladislav Cojocaru (accordion), Vlado Grizelj (guitar) and Peter Cudek (bass) come from Moldova, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Slovakia. They have developed their own Django Gypsy sound by reconnecting with their regions and musical idioms. The brilliant Peter Cudek on bass is very pensive during his solo. Vladislav Cojocaru’s melodic arcs fly artistically high, but are well supported by Vlado Grizelj’s guitar.
The trio had retreated into the semi-darkness of the container, where short films were also being shown in an adjoining room. The dancers from the Tanzwerkwerkstatt München in their historical costumes stood closely packed together under a tarpaulin and waited for the rain to stop.
But then they simply began their round trip through the dances of the island world from Kos to Icaria, again and again symbolically forming the large circle of all participants hooked in, a sun sign? A simple sign from the sirtaki, inimitable in its pride and festivity. A sun sign! The rain had cleared for the time being.
This was the beacon for a series of four great bands on the open-air stage behind the containers on Speicherstraße.
In Eskises, endless threads of clarinet (Ufuk Bakirdögen) are woven into carpets that you can only sit on in the air, where they remain firm for a short time. Flying carpets, for local traffic only. In the quickly arriving turnaround, the whole team crashes clownishly and then rebuilds the whole thing with a hasty accelerando. Turkish lyrics, Turkish humorous antics.
The Rembetiko trio Moumourakia, classically scored with bouzouki, violin (perc) and guitar, takes a more Greek, festive approach. Very hermetically beautiful bouzouki, wonderful syncopations that celebrate the inevitable in their own way. Falling backwards, running forwards and still arriving!
The eight-piece band Pnema has double the various positions and the percussion section is also more powerful. Sonja Weis, singer, is occasionally supported by male polyphony.
There was a lot of dancing beforehand. But when the Express Brass Band takes the stage with a thousand horns, a harmonious festival day with moderately passionate weather ends as a fierce Zamas party. A dozen or so horns cannot be adjusted to the optimum level in a hurry. After a first acoustically acceptable intermediate level, Wolfgang “Woife” Schlick is no longer able to stay on stage. Enveloped by the silver helicon body of his Skylla, he makes his way through the cable cases into the audience and the show takes off. From Maghreb from Carthage to the Rif, the Greeks can be heard.
Ui-ui! Hammas? Yes, I’ve got it!
Text: Michael Wüst
