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https://theconversation.com/national-pride-and-sorrow-attending-the-150th-latvian-song-and-dance-festival-as-the-daughter-of-refugees-205398>
"“With song we have achieved freedom. With song we have gone to war. With song
we have been victorious.”
These were the words of the newly elected president of Latvia, Edgars
Rinkēvičs, at the closing ceremony of the 150th Latvian Song and Dance
festival, held from June 30 to July 9.
Rinkēvičs was greeted by an audience of 50,000 members of the public and 21,000
performers who cheered and waved Latvian flags. He spoke about the power of
song to unite and give hope to the Latvian people and to reinforce its
centuries old cultural traditions.
Upward Together, the five-hour finale of this ten-day festival, was held in
Silver Grove: an enormous, brand new, crescent-shaped arena amid tall pines in
Mežaparks forest on the outskirts of Latvia’s capital, Rīga.
Upward Together was not just a celebration of Latvia’s rich culture: it was
an emotional outpouring of both individual and collective national pride and
sorrow. It reflected Latvia’s strong pagan roots and its deep love of nature
which features in most of its folk songs. Here, the gods reside in trees,
rivers, the sun, the moon and the stars.
But more significantly, the festival asserted the power of song as a peaceful
form of protest against a long history of occupation by Germans, Poles, Swedes
and Russians, culminating last century in almost 45 years of Soviet rule."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
