436.1 Traditional arts events as new perspectives of leisure in multicultural societies in Europe

Friday, August 3, 2012: 9:00 AM
Faculty of Economics, TBA
Oral Presentation
Alba COLOMBO , Arts & Humanities, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
Given the growing of social and cultural exchanges, provoked by migration, social movements and global economic instability, arts and culture programs shall be strategic and important element solving problems identified as collectives.

Cultural events presenting different traditional arts experiences may be strategic elements for a new leisure in multicultural societies in Europe. Leisure experience which could transmit values, information and help to keep traditions for different minority groups expressing themselves together generating their own event.  How could be measured the real effect that this kind of event creates to the immediate society? This analysis becomes more complex regarding the intangible characteristics of some traditional expressions. This paper focuses on the complex problematic to measure intangible effects created by traditional arts events, generally related to cultural and social aspects of the society.

Having examined the conceptualization of cultural events, traditional arts expressions as well as underlying methodological aspects, this paper presents a new kind of leisure experience as a alternative perspectives of leisure in multicultural societies in Europe.

The analyzed data are mainly derived from a number of studies carried out by various researchers and institutions, as well as derived from the analysis done on one of the European most well know traditional arts events, the Karneval der Kultren in Berlin.

The paper concludes with some reflections on the multicultural leisure in Europe, identifying some aspects, which need to be taken into account.