Globe-hopping was as easy as an elevator ride for the sold-out crowd at GlobalFest, the world-music showcase that commandeered all three floors at the Public Theater to present 15 live bands in five hours on Saturday night. For the musicians, who played overlapping 40-minute sets, it was easier than that. They didn't have to leave the stage, since their music was rarely confined by national borders.

GlobalFest was linked to the annual conference of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, and in a sense it was an extended audition before promoters from across the country. The music reflected an interconnected world in which ethnographic purity is giving way to multicultural fusions, though a cultural heritage often shines through the international trappings.

Yet some of the strongest performances were those that stayed closest to home. Vusi Mahlasela, a South African singer who was active in the movement against apartheid, played alone with an acoustic guitar in songs that gathered a kindly and overwhelming power. He explained some of his lyrics: memories of his county's brutal past and cautious hopes for the future. As he picked delicate syncopated counterpoint, his voice crooned, growled, bounced in quick syllables and rose to a benevolent falsetto, with musical delights as abundant as good intentions.

Emeline Michel, from Haiti, made her set an island tour. As her band delved into regional styles from voodoo drumming to the lilt of the urban compas, her voice kept revealing new aspects — serene and breathy, sharp and percussive, warmly declamatory or nearly operatic — as she soared above the beat like a dancing ambassador.

Mariza, a leading Portuguese fado singer, has honed the drama of her music. Over the filigreed guitar parts of her group, she dropped to a near whisper and built to thoroughly melodic sobs; she hinted at flirtation, heartbreak and resolve.

Even traditionalists had some twists. Dervish, from Ireland, raced through jigs and reels with full traditional virtuosity, but could also enfold them in glimmering minimalist webs of mandolin and bouzouki. Forró in the Dark, which revives rural Brazilian dance tunes called baiãos, started with an accordion fantasia, as if drifting back in time.

Diego Amador, from Spain, sang flamenco with the rough, volatile voice of traditional singers, but accompanied himself on piano, detouring into jazz harmonies and classical flourishes. Savina Yannatou, from Greece, ranged through songs from Spain, Albania, Bulgaria and elsewhere, adapting local ornaments to her sweetly fluttering voice and vigorous tambourine.

But fusion was the order of the night. Mercan Dede's Secret Tribe melded Turkish Sufi songs with electronica, accompanying clarinet, kanun (zither) and hand drum with deep electronic drones and pulses, in an amalgam that retained the mystery and reverence of Sufi traditions. At times a woman dressed in a dervishlike long skirt twirled onstage.

Angélique Kidjo (born in Benin) sang about Bahia, Brazil, during a set that traded her usual electric band for a small acoustic group that only sharpened the intensity of her voice. Susheela Raman's set began with a sustained, South Indian-style vocal improvisation, then moved between centuries-old South Indian songs in modern settings and new, socially conscious songs that touched on flamenco and neo-soul.

Marcel Khalife, an oud player from Lebanon, led a quartet featuring his two jazz-loving

sons. Les Yeux Noirs, from Paris, played Gypsy fiddle tunes with a rock backbeat, not improving them.

Raul Paz, a Cuban singer who lives in Paris, added rock and reggae rhythms to old and new Latin songs, perhaps with an eye on American singers like Marc Anthony. Tania Libertad, a Peruvian singer living in Mexico, sang manifestoes about the power of music and the survival of Afro-Peruvian rhythms, but she also turned a ballad, "Dos Gardenias," into something like a jazzy torch song.

Beat the Donkey, a group led by the Brazilian percussionist Cyro Baptista, deployed Balinese gongs, tap dancing and blues-rock slide guitar. The group members used pinpoint timing for sly rhythm-and-vaudeville; at one point, two tambourine players sounded as if they were playing badminton. Their set was a happy fusion overload, direct from New York City.