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CIOFF. Conseil International des Organisations
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ONG en relations formelles de consultation avec l’UNESCO
folklorisa da tradiciuli xelovnebis
festivalebis saerTaSoriso asociacia (“siofi”)
To all National Delegates of CIOFF
29.09.2010
Dear Colleagues,
The National Committee of CIOFF-Georgia is very concerned with the
situation regarding participation of Georgia Folklore Groups in the International
Folklore Festivals. The problem is that in of late years there has been created a
number of different associations, tourist and travel agencies, companies, unions,
which in additions to their general functions also deal with the export of the
Georgian folklore abroad, although the have nothing to do with folklore.
The heads of such organizations contact directly (via internet) the Directors
of Folklore Festivals and request them to invite Georgian participants.
Such system is absolutely breaks the rules of CIOFF about invitation on
Folklore Groups. As a result, the Directors of various Folklore Festivals are
disappointed with the low professionalism of the invited Folk groups: sometimes
they even have to deal with the immigration services and police because of such
“participants”. There have been a few cases when we were informed by the
directors of Folklore festivals about participation of some group’s postfactum.
We think that this way of invitations is unacceptable, because CIOFFGeorgia has to deal with their complaints and problems, notwithstanding the fact
that the groups were not invited through our organization.
Consequently the National Committee of CIOFF-Georgia would like to ask
you to inform the Directors of International Festivals (Which are under the
auspices of CIOFF) about our worries concerning the recent situation and
request them to respect the Rules of CIOFF about invitation of Folklore groups.
They should be inviting the participants by means of the National Committee of
CIOFF, thus guaranteeing the high quality of Performance under the
responsibility of CIOFF-Georgia.
Thank you in advance,
Levan Kasradze
National Committee CIOFF of Georgia