For the young and old, families with children and adventurous music lovers, Sfinks is an exploratory excursion into enriching cultures. It’s a hospitable festival, where beautiful music, good food and drinks, amazing tents and structures await to please you. This year’s festival gathered over 72.000 people on four days, quite surprising for a festival that has no real headliners. But then again, the audience at Sfinks comes to discover unknown artists and is curious about less known cultures. The festival being free gives itself a really low threshold. In this way, it caters not only to regular festival-goers, but also to families and people from different migrant communities in Belgium. The last weekend of July has become a regular tradition where tens of thousands of people depart for a musical discovery trip like no other.

In 1975, Sfinks started as a small Anglo-Saxon folk festival around the kiosk in a local school park. In 1982, the history of Sfinks history was rewritten: from then on the festival featured more exotic programmes. At ’Sfinks Roots’, bands such as Youssou N’Dour, Sun Ra Orkestra, Gilberto Gil, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Cheb Khaled, Femi Kuti, Ruben Blades, etc played, thus making Sfinks one of the first world music festivals in the world.

Due to the increasing success of its original formula, the festival widened its scope and this led to more stages and more diverse programmes. Artists such as I Muvrini, Manu Dibango, Alpha Blondy and Goran Bregovic have performed at Sfinks.

Sfinks 2013, 100 artists from 4 different continents

Because of its idiosyncratic options and wide range of world music discoveries, Sfinks is considered one of the foremost festivals in Belgium and Europe. In 2013 had very diverse programs, introducing almost 100 artists from 4 different continents. Many professionals from Belgium and abroad network at Sfinks while discovering dozens of unheard artists they had never heard of.

The Concert Stage featured artists like Gaby Amarantos (the voice of the song for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Rio de Janeiro), Ky-Mani Marley (son of Bob Marley), Che Sudaka (heirs of Manu Chao) alongside national stars like Coely (the new Rising hip-hop voice in Belgium). Alongside this stage, there were two DJ-stages with a non-stop program of DJ’s around the world, mixing the 2013 sound of urban capitals across the globe. Meanwhile, the evening programs attracted a large crowd of young urban people.

The Club Stage presented smaller teams and acoustic music. Classical, traditional and contemporary music met an attentive audience of 1.800 there. Albanian polyphonic songs, Palestinian contemporary Oud, Brazilian-Argentine cello and ... The Gwangdae!

Even children had their own stage in the Kidz Village. Urban acts, Chinese shadow puppets, Indonesian sing-along immerse the young ones in a brave new world. Around the stage, you could encounter various parades and meet with the 117 person strong Castellers de la Sagrada Familia: an age old tradition from Catalonia (Spain) that builds 7-person high human towers!

Sfinks has been looking east for years, and The Gwangdae was the one for 2013

Unlike many other festivals, Sfinks has turned to the East for years. This year’s edition presented artists from China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, India and Korea.

In July 2006, a Korean team made its way to Sfinks for the very first time. Dulsori instantly won the heart of the audience, and opened possibilities for many others. Since many more were invited. Mr Dongo Choi introduced us to Gut during its four-day ritual, Ms. Ahn Sook-Sun led us to Pansori, Coreyah gave us an insight into contemporary Korean folk music. Sooeun Kwak overwhelmed listeners with her gayageum ensemble... Regular visits to PAMS (Seoul) and the Ulsan World Music Festival have given the festival a privileged insight into Korean culture and has laid a foundation for a continuously growing network.

Since then Korea has been an integral part of this festival.

The Gwangdae performed for 4 consecutive days at the festival in 2013, making use of such an ample opportunity to present a wide variety of Korean traditions, dance and music. Landing in Belgium after an exciting adventure at the Festival for Popular Arts in Marrakesh (Morocco), the team was given some days to rest before meeting the European audience.

After performing some smaller shows on the site, The Gwangdae performed in the Club Stage with a capacity of 1,800 which was packed for the show. It was a very hot day, and the temperature inside the tent was very high. Despite this setback and the specific festival technical conditions, the audience was travelling on a trip through Korean traditions and reacted very enthusiastically to the virtuosity of the musicians and dancers. The elegant dances and energetic percussion were warmly welcomed. Especially children, for whom the fromt seats were reserved at this festival, were mesmerised! Not surprisingly, the show ended with a standing ovation and people were asking for more...

For the next three dayss the Gwangdae performed on various sites in the festival venue and visitors were amazed by various Korean traditions. Families were participating in the saja-nori, jaws dropped during the chaesan-sogochum and everyone was surprised by the strangely familiar beona-nori. These shows were very interactive and brought the audience really close to the performers. Word spread fast during the festival and on Sunday (closing day) The Gawangdae performances were eagerly awaited. In only a few days, time they were able to conquer the heart of many thousands of spectators who will keep good memories of the colourful and virtuosic displays of Korean culture.

The four-day immersion in Korean traditions was exactly what the festival needed. In this way, it continued its attempt to introduce high-level Korean performances to the Western audience. I am the director of the festival, is part of the Ulsan World Music Festival selection committee and a keen visitor of the PAMS in Seoul.

Sfinks also coordinates the European Forum of Worldwide Music Festivals (EFWMF), a unique network of 46 festivals worldwide. These festivals exchange ideas and discoveries, and make it possible for bands to come to Europe. KAMS gives an ongoing grant to Korean artists invited to these festivals, a wonderful opportunity for all!

More information on Sfinks can be found on
http://www.sfinks.be/home.php?lang=en
https://www.facebook.com/sfinksfestival
http://www.efwmf.org/