2023 Latvian Traditional Culture Festival: Honoring Excellence in Entertainment, Sports, and Cultural Gardens

Throughout the year, in entertainment, sports and some cultural gardens, the previous year’s excellent performers are highlighted, honored, awarded and celebrated. The country is more generous – twice a year there is an abundance of orders, commendations and other honors.

I decided to look at who would deserve the Order of the Three Stars or at least, according to the traditions of American show business, an Oscar for their work in the field of traditional culture in 2023? To better In order to better see and count everything that happened, please help Latvian Traditional Culture Associations Facebook people united in a group to express their opinions. Here’s what we got!

The great ones I sing holiday

First the General Festival of Song and Dance. The greatest multi-genre festival for the past 150 years, where folklore has had a relatively decent place among other events. What’s nice, folklore ensembles didn’t have to sing in needle skirts at the entrance to the Great Stage, as it was… better not to remember which holiday! A special Folklore Day was set aside for traditions on July 7, in Vērmanes garden and at the Raina monument, where you can sing and dance with folk musicians and singers.

Brass band concert “Time passes” in Andrejost on July 5, 2023. Photo: Kaspars Teilāns/Juris Pavlovs

There were also folk dances in other places, among which the Diaspora dancers in Ķīpsala and the Brass Band Festival in Andrejost should be highlighted, where a green ball with brass knuckles alternated with really jester dancers. As a novelty, the choreographic revelations of Agate Bankava in the concert “Trejdeviņi spēlmanīši” on the Hanza platform should be highlighted. At least a couple of influencers wanted to dance even in the Daugava stadium, because this time there too, motifs close to folk dance were heard.

A night of singing and dancing after the closing concert of the General Song and Dance Festival “Together Up” at Mežapark’s Great Stage. July 9, 2023. Photo: Kaspars Teilans

From my point of view, the night of sing-alongs in Sidrab Birz should be valued the most, where for the first time, tens of thousands of people sang regional folk songs for several hours, and several young professionals of folk music were the lead singers. Thanks to Lauma Bērza, who produced this event. Maybe in the next holiday, it is worth considering the idea of ​​getting together, where we would dance regional dances after the final concert.

2024-01-06 22:06:49


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