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For the fifteenth time, the Tanec Praha festival is back in full swing in the Czech capital, featuring foreign dance companies from eight countries and numerous choreographies from local dancers. In the space of eleven days, Czechs will be able to see the best of the best in contemporary dance not just in Prague but also in the Moravian city of Brno and the Bohemian town of Most. And, for the first time in its history, the festival is accompanied by a projection of dance movies at the French Institute in Prague.

The 58th International Prague Spring Music Festival ended this week, featuring many distinguished musicians from all over the world and also the Czech Republic. As part of the festival, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra performed a concert featuring the works of Leos Janacek, Bohuslav Martinu and Josef Suk, under the baton of the world-renowned conductor Sir Charles Mackerras. The concert was dedicated to the 120th anniversary of the birth of Czech conductor Vaclav Talich, who used to be Sir Charles' mentor back in 1947 when the young musician first

The World Roma Festival, Khamoro 2003 is almost at an end and this year, as in the previous four years, it had several highlights. In today's Arts, I'll be looking at just one, a seminar held this week to explore something that the Roma are mostly associated with - their music. While some of you may believe there is little to discuss, just think of three names - the Gypsy Kings, Django Reinhardt, and the Czech Republic's Vera Bila. All three are known as Roma musicians but their music differs greatly. So, what exactly is Roma music? How can it

Many of you are probably familiar with the Eurovision Song Contest, an annual contest in which European countries compete for the best pop song. It has been taking place since 1956, and hundreds of millions of people all around the world now tune into it each year. But those hundreds of millions do not include the Czechs.

Last weekend, the winners of the Magnesia Litera book awards for the best Czech books published in 2002 were announced in Prague.

Maria, Jan, Martin, Jindrich, Josef, Frantisek, Dominik, Vaclav and Petr. These might sound like ordinary Czech first names to you but their bearers are rather extraordinary. They were all born in 2003 and you can find them under the roof of a Renaissance tower in the centre of Prague.

Hello and welcome to another edition of Encore, our monthly programme devoted to classical music. Now, it's not by chance that I started the programme with an extract of the Czech Philharmonic performing Smetana's My Country - one of the potent symbols of the Czech national revival in the 19th century. My Country is traditionally played at the opening concert of the Prague Spring international music festival, which begins on Monday and continues over the next three weeks. 2003 is the festival's fifty-eighth year, and over the decades the festival

In today's edition, we'll be looking at some of the cultural events coming up in the next few days and reflect upon a breathtaking performance by one of the biggest song and dance ensembles in the world. Stay tuned:

Today's edition is devoted to artists from the country's Roma community. We'll be looking at a new book that's hit the shelves and a recently released CD of the Roma band Terne Chave:

For the last few weeks it might have seemed that the Czech world of arts revolved almost exclusively around books. Well this time again, this programme focuses on two events related to books and literature - as they simply dominate the arts scene in the coming days. On Thursday, the ninth Prague book fair, Bookworld 2003 got underway at the Prague Exhibition Grounds. While it was "water, water everywhere" during last August's floods, now the Art Nouveau exhibition palace is for four days flooded with books.