After Fado, it can now be the turn of Cante Alentejano. Cante Alentejano's candidacy for Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity received a positive opinion from an international commission of UNESCO experts.
The UNESCO International Committee, which meets from November 24th to 28th, in Paris (France), will now make a final decision on the candidacy, but Paulo Lima, responsible for the candidacy process and director of Casa do Cante, in Serpa, he already pointed out that the opinion of the group of experts is usually "very binding for the final decision".
According to the official, "the opinion says that the candidacy meets all the conditions", so there are now "founded hopes that the Alentejo cante will be inscribed on the representative list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity" by the United Nations Educational Organization, Science and Culture (UNESCO).
Tomé Pires, mayor of Serpa, considered, for his part, that "this is really the last step, this pre-assessment is very important." "We are really close to achieving our goal", saying that, after the expert opinion, "maybe we can speak of 99% certainty", that Cante will be part of the UNESCO list.
The mayor added that the entire process that involved the candidacy has already generated "a great dynamic" around this cultural expression, giving as an example the fact that, in recent years, "several young choir groups have been born in all municipalities" of the Alentejo.
After the eventual inscription on the world heritage list, the objective is that «this dynamic continues to grow, through the Cante safeguard plan that is included in the nomination and also bringing more people to this world».
Ceia e Silva, president of Turismo do Alentejo e Ribatejo, also classified the news of the positive opinion as "fantastic", while the Secretary of State for Culture Jorge Barreto Xavier also welcomed the news of the admission of the candidacy to the list of processes that will be discussed in November in Paris.
Cante Alentejano's candidacy was submitted to UNESCO in March 2013, after the Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided, in 2012, to postpone its presentation, considering that the process did not meet the conditions to be accepted. In February of this year, a set of new information about this intangible cultural asset was delivered.
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