Watch an English Romani documentary from Cecil Sharp House to celebrate Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month, followed by an insight-sharing session.
Recordings of Romani Gypsies and Travellers, held in national and regional sound archives, have had a lasting impact on folk repertoires and styles in Britain. However, the ethnic backgrounds of the singers are rarely acknowledged in the catalogues, and the songs are thus co-opted not to tell Romani and Traveller stories and history, but those of a majority population.
‘Romani and Traveller Voices in Music Archives’ is a collaborative project bringing together Romani and Traveller communities, archivists, cultural events organisers, and universities to address the exclusion of Romani and Traveller voices from national histories of folk singing in the UK.
In collaboration with Romani filmmaker Lisa Smith, founder of the UK’s first Romani-led production company Patrin Films, the project has produced a short film, A Basket Full of Eggs (2025, 18 minutes). The film follows Romani advocate and journalist Liza Mortimer as she visits England’s national folk music and dance archive at the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library in London. Through conversations with song collectors, singers and archivists, she explores her great grandmother Minty Smith and her family’s influence on English folk music.
The film screening will be preceded by a brief introductory talk presenting the project, and followed by Q&A.
Watch the .
A Basket Full of Eggs was funded by the University of East Anglia's AHRC Impact Accelerator Award as part of the project 'Romani and Traveller Voices in Music Archives'. The project is a collaboration between University of East Anglia, the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library at the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Cecil Sharp House, and Access Folk, at the University of Sheffield.
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