10th Latvian School Youth Song and Dance Festival to take place in Riga this July
By RigaNOW!.
24.05.2010
From the 6th to the 11th of July this year, Riga will host the Tenth Latvian School Youth Song and Dance Festival.
The events of the festival will take part at the Grand Stage in Riga’s Mezaparks, Daugava Stadium, Kipsala Exhibition Centre, the Main Hall of the University of Latvia, the Riga Latvian Society House, the Latvian Open-air Ethnographic Museum, and at other venues, informs kultura.lv.
The festival’s opening concert will take place on July 6 at the VEF Palace of Culture in Riga, featuring folk dancing by prizewinning dance collectives.
A parade by festival participants through the centre of Riga is planned for July 10.
On the same date, a choir concert will also take place on the Great Stage at Mezaparks with the title “My Land – the Beautiful Land!” (“Mana zeme – zemīte skaistā!”). The voices of 12,500 children and young people will be heard, and the concert will ring out like a musical floral bouquet celebrating the festival’s 50-year anniversary. The best songs of those times will be sung, which have not lost their meaning today, alongside new songs by composers Imants Kalniņš, Ēriks Ešenvalds, Raimonds Pauls, Uldis Marhilēvičs, and Artūrs Maskats. The concert will also feature dance collectives, brass bands, and folklore groups.
July 11 will see the large-scale folk dance concert “Dance into the Sky” (“Deja kāpj debesīs”) take place at Daugava Stadium. A total of 12,500 children old and young from all over Latvia will take part in 29 dances and dance suites at the venue. The artistic directors of this grand concert are Baiba Šteina and Agris Daniļevičs, and the director is Uģis Brikmanis. The vocal group “Cosmos” will also appear alongside the dancers.
A contemporary dance concert will be held on the 9th of July at Riga Congress Centre. 600 dancers will come together in one theatrical performance which will surprise the audience with striking group dances and original ideas.
Tickets for the festival are priced from one lat up to 20 lats. Many of the events can be visited free of charge, while entry to the dress rehearsals for the main event will cost from one to three lats.
The festival has been included in UNESCO’s festival calendar for 2010-2011 in recognition of the 50-year anniversary of the event and its significance for the preservation and transmission of Baltic song and dance festival traditions.
More information about the festival and its program can be found at www.dziedundejo.lv.
