Diaspora London Music Village Festival Returns to Hyde Park in 2008

The summer Music Village – Europe’s longest-running festival of world cultures – makes an immediate return to London’s Hyde Park Saturday 12 & Sunday 13 July 2008, 1-9pm each day, after a hugely popular debut event in 2007.

Twenty groups of London-based performers are featured in two jam-packed days of top class music, dance and spoken word from all over the world. The line-up includes African, Latin, Jewish, Asian, Kurdish, East European and Chinese performance styles, to reflect decades of converging migrations into London from every corner of the earth.

The festival is an eagerly awaited event in London’s annual cultural calendar and is organized by arts charity, Cultural Co-operation.

The Music Village has developed a devoted and extraordinarily diverse public following over the years for its blend of artistic excellence, topical themes, and easily accessible, high-profile locations.

Festival Director, Prakash Daswani, sets the scene for 2008: ”All the performers in this year’s global line-up are London-based, though the origins of most lie way beyond these shores. Some are emerging superstars – or long-hidden gems – within the city’s broad sweep of diaspora communities. Others have already attained mainstream popular acclaim, both within the capital and far further afield. Together, they represent some of the fruits of ever-increasing cross-cultural mingling in this, the 21st century’s leading World City.

And what better place for ordinary people to enjoy this profusion of artistic talent than in this year’s superb festival setting: a gladed natural amphitheatre nestling by the Serpentine in Hyde Park, central London’s most popular green space.

This year’s event presents an easy and direct way for Londoners of all national origins and faith persuasions – or none – and all social backgrounds and ages, to come together and experience this thriving, cosmopolitan, creative and, above all, forward-looking, enterprise, of which they themselves are an indispensable part.”

Full details of the 2008 artists and their performance times are available on www.culturalco-operation.org from 23 June onwards.