In practical terms, GlobalFest was an audition for the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, concert promoters in town for their annual conference. They could hear, and consider booking, styles from flamenco to Peruvian songs to music for the banjolike Japanese shamisen. But it was also a showcase for survival strategies, the ways that local musicians face an indifferent wider world. How much to change, how much to explain and how much to leave audiences guessing were all open questions.

One strategy was sheer ferocity. That worked for the Warsaw Village Band, which played aggressive versions of traditional Polish songs, describing its music as ''radical roots style'' and ''hardcore folk''; its fiddle player had dreadlocks. Three women sang with the traditional cutting tone and drone harmonies of Slavic songs, and the band spurred them on with more drones (from fiddle and cello), with drumbeats and with the insistent pattering of a hammered dulcimer. The propulsion, generated by muscle power, could be as relentless and invigorating as techno, but the voices sounded ancient.

The Yoshida Brothers, who have become major stars in Japan, play the Tsugaru shamisen, a long-necked lute plucked with a big triangular pick that also taps the instrument with a percussive clatter. Shamisen has always been flashy, and while the brothers' recent albums have used unfortunate touches of new age music, their set -- like a shredding heavy-metal solo -- was all about speed and twang. They played fast unisons that would have ruthlessly revealed any mistakes; they played solos that stayed close to the tunes and built pitiless crescendos. It was music of pure sinew.

The African musicians at GlobalFest took gentler approaches in music that was mesmerizing rather than overpowering, but still danceable. Rokia Traore, from Mali, used the pointillistic patterns of African lutes and balafon (xylophone) in songs that gently transformed her traditions. She adds electric bass lines and smooths a traditionally penetrating vocal sound into something more approachable, while holding on to the music's intricate drive.

Mory Kante brought his acoustic band for a briefer reprise of his euphoric set at S.O.B.'s the night before. Lokua Kanza, from the Congo, used only his fingerpicked guitar, an occasional hand drum and two close-harmony backup singers -- his brother and daughter -- in songs that carried echoes of the tradition into personal, sweetly imploring songs.

Juana Molina, from Argentina, was closer as a songwriter to Joni Mitchell or Suzanne Vega than to the tango. But she gave her songs eerie synthesizer backdrops that wafted them toward surrealism. Eva Ayllon, from Peru, a tradition-rooted pop singer, updated old Afro-Peruvian songs with a modern keyboard but kept the cajón (box) as percussion and sang with gutsy drama.

A French group, Paris Combo, harked back to the swinging cabaret songs of the 1930's, with an airy chanteuse and touches of Django Reinhardt-styled guitar. It wasn't rigorously archival; not only was there a song about watching television, but the combo also slipped in some 1960's harmonies, hinting at Miles Davis.

Bands from New York reached back to their choice of musical golden ages. The Spanish Harlem Orchestra, which includes many of the city's longtime Latin sidemen, reclaimed the mambo drive and positive thinking of 1970's salsa. Antibalas is dedicated to Afrobeat, the politicized funk created by the Nigerian bandleader and gadfly Fela Kuti; it had the audience dancing as it denounced President Bush. The New York group Ollabelle did well-meaning but bland adaptations of old gospel songs.

Another New Yorker, DJ Rekha, gave the night a 21st-century postscript, mixing South Asian melodies with the deep bass and muscular beats of hip-hop, dancehall and jungle music.

At the other end of the GlobalFest spectrum was a thoroughly traditional-sounding group: Noche Flamenca, a Spanish ensemble with smoldering, tragedy-haunted flamenco songs and elegant dancers. But it also had headset microphones and some synchronized group dance moves, as in a rock video. Survival means adaptation.