More than 3000 participants will take part in Baltica Festival
249 folklore groups from all historical regions of Latvia will take part in the International Folklore Festival Baltica, which will be held this year from June 26 to 29 in Riga, Sigulda, and Daugavpils, bringing together 3,110 participants. Among them will be diaspora groups and foreign guests from Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Peru. Most participants come from Latgale, Vidzeme, and Kurzeme. As has become a tradition, Latgale will be the most represented region at Baltica, with 87 groups and 1030 participants taking part in the various events. The second most represented region this year will be Vidzeme with 50 groups and 624 participants, while the third most represented region will be Kurzeme with 48 groups and 541 participants. Riga will be represented by 30 groups and 454 participants. There will also be 19 groups and 303 participants from Zemgale and 9 groups and 103 participants from Sēlija. The participants of the festival are the groups that received category I or II for their performance at the Baltica Festival Repertoire Test Shows at the end of last year. “The theme of this year’s festival is language, and already at the auditions one could get to know its patterns, rhythm, sound, and character in music, songs, dance, stories or the musicians’ style of playing,” says Edeite Laime, the author of the festival’s theme.
The unique found in songs, dialects, events and stories
“The Zemgale groups were characterized by different and previously unheard combinations of sounds in the refrains to their songs, traces of the Semigallian, Vot or Krieviņi heritage, as well as the language of bells, shepherds, and children. Kurzeme people showed their uniqueness through the stories of sea fishermen and the words they used, as well as by highlighting various personalities, such as the paintings of Janis Rozentāls, the life story of Katrīna Ignate from Otaņķi, and her contribution to the creation of a local dialect dictionary. The stories of the Livs, the Popiņi, the Suiti, Puze and Ēdole tongues, the Talsi Dižmāra fair, the Piltene Jews, the Zirņu parish Lithuanians, and others were also heard," recalls Laime. "The representatives of Vidzeme honored the songs written down by folklorist Voldemārs Stelbergs, retold the stories of the Gauja rafters, remembered Katrīna of Lielvārde who was burned at the stake, spoke in the local dialects of Maliena, Vidzeme Livs, Sēļi, Piebalga natives, and with the help of their songs and dances gave an idea of the experiences at the Simjūda market, Rencēni pub, and other places,” says Laime, adding that many languages from other historical regions of Latvia could be heard in the area, as many people from other regions have migrated to Vidzeme in the past. “The festival’s test performances made us realize that the Sēļi language is becoming more and more alive in Sēlija with the typical decorations and the joy of songs written down in different parts of Sēlija, as well as memories of the influence of the envious and the gossipers, neighborly feeling and everyone’s own language of the heart. In Latgale, in addition to the stories of various homesteads, islands and villages, the language of nature - birds, trees, flowers, horses and other subjects - was heard. Latgalians invited the audience to weddings, clean-ups, outdoor dances, demonstrated the various Latgalian voices, and also paid tribute to the songs of Onton Skrinda, told about the life of Lake Lubāns fishermen, and did not forget the “God Songs” typical for the region.
Guests from Peru, who studied in Riga in the late 1980s and performed at the festival in 1991, will also take part in the festival, as will two Latvian diaspora groups - the Latvian folklore group “Dūdalnieki” from Northern England and the folklore group “Rēvele” from the Latvian National Culture Society in Estonia. Baltica will also host four foreign guest groups. Estonia will be represented this year by the folklore group “Siidisõsarõ”, whose name means “very close sisters”. Their roots lie in Setomaa, a region in southeastern Estonia where the Estonian Setts lived. They are a Finno-Ugric people whose distinctive traditional singing and unique language have been inscribed on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List. The Setts can also always be recognized by their distinctive costumes. This year, Lithuania will be represented by the folk ensemble “Poringes”, whose name means “legend” in Lithuanian. It is a youth folklore ensemble from Vilnius, which has its origins in the Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences. The ensemble’s repertoire ranges from Lithuanian folk music of the 16th-19th centuries to music and dances popular in Lithuanian villages at the beginning of the 20th century. In its 50-year history, “Poringes” has performed in more than 20 countries, giving about 3000 concerts. The folklore group “Perlynka” from the Volyn region of Ukraine, which includes both young people and adults, will also take part in the festival. The group has performed in more than 15 countries in recent years, and for three years has been organizing fairs, concerts and workshops to help the Ukrainian armed forces and people affected by the war through volunteer work. The folk music group “Yawar Peru”, formed in Riga in 1988 by Peruvian students studying aviation in Latvia, will take the longest journey to the Baltica Festival. The word “yawar” means “blood” in the Quechua language spoken by the Incas. The band’s name translates as “Peruvian blood” and they perform music from the Andean mountain region and other Latin American countries. The group participated in the Baltica Festival in 1991 and performed for another year before its members went on to pursue careers around the world and are now aeronautical engineers in Europe, the U.S., and Peru. 20 years later, in 2012, the group reunited in Riga and has been meeting almost every year since then at various events in Europe. “After 30 years, ‘Yawar Peru’ has decided to perform again at the Baltica Festival in cooperation with ‘Inti Pacha’, a group of Peruvians living in Munich, Germany.