The deepest essence of this holiday is the desire for self-expression / Article

The main essence of the Song and Dance Festival is the desire to express oneself, and children must be given the opportunity to experience it – in this opinion Reinis Suhanovs, director and set designer of the 12th Latvian School Youth Song and Dance Festival Folk Dance Concert. There are also a few unexpected benefits in celebrating the holiday away, but the hope of meeting in person and joining hands in small groups in the autumn is still not abandoned.

“Often we, especially those who are not deeply involved in the process, look at the festival effectively – we stand in line and get tickets or get invitations to the big concert, and we get the feeling that it is also the Song Festival.

But the Song Festival is also a four-year cycle where people prepare a repertoire where the teacher works with his students.

[..] The desire for self-expression is the deepest essence of this holiday. [..] As adults, we have to try to get on the sidelines and let the children get the most out of what they do, from what they have learned, “Reinis Suhanovs, who suggested that the Latvian radio program” Kultūras rondo ” he has repeatedly participated in the festival both as a dancer and as a singer.

Commenting on the remote format of the festival, Suhanov highlights the link between the e-school experienced last school year, which is now continuing with the e-festival. In the current epidemiological context, with the vaccination coverage as it is in schools, real dancing, even at hand, cannot be expected immediately. He recalls that

The holiday process has changed not only this year – we already experienced before the pandemic cancel the festive processionwhile protecting children ‘s health.

The director and set designer of the folk dance concert is aware of how difficult it is for the leaders of the groups to switch from face to face and keep the interest of the students, at the same time they see some good value that could be preserved during the e-festival. One of them – managed to involve those who, for various reasons, would not be able to return to Riga at all. It in the video project “Celebrate the sun” immortalized 12 thousand young dancers.

“They are children dancing on the side of a beautiful, rainy meadow, by the sea, they are children dancing in an apartment overlooking a block of flats, they are children dancing in a barn in the middle between cows – they are wonderful, creatively chosen shots, “

says Reinis Suhanovs. It is clear that there will be no big concert at the Daugava Stadium this year, but the hope that in the autumn it will be possible to organize a dance day, where students gathered for dance from different places in a row, will not disappear.

In addition to singers and folk dancers, there are also young people who, for example, create works of visual art and folk costumes. They have already done their work, it must be immortalized and shown now, not in several years, when the folk costume created will be too small, Suhanov emphasizes.

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