“Adorn Yourself in Latvian Symbols” returns to audiences in a new form as a multimedia concert story, which the RTU Folk Dance Ensemble “Vektors” will perform in two concerts on May 1 and 2 at the Daile Theatre. The concert story will be enriched by the Saulkrasti mixed choir “Anima,” the bagpipe and drum music group “Auļi,” as well as the “MM Orchestra” under the direction of Mārtiņš Miļevskis.
The concert story is based on the musical and dramatic material of the multimedia dance performance “Adorn Yourself in Latvian Symbols,” created in 2021 under pandemic conditions. At the time, amateur art collectives could work only remotely, so the choreography was created and filmed individually for each of the 600 dancers, meeting one another only in the digital world.
It has been five years since “Adorn Yourself in Latvian Symbols” was shown on the big cinema screens, and during that time choreographer Dagmāra Bārbale has created stage productions of this dance, allowing the movement and the story to live on real stage boards. In the newly created concert story, these two worlds, digital and live, will come together, allowing the audience to experience something entirely new in the field of stage dance. Special significance will belong to the stage space created by director and set designer Reinis Suhanovs, which on several levels will bring these two worlds closer together, permeate them, and at times merge them.
“In moments when you are put in a box, it is important to find the beautiful within it and share it. In moments when things are difficult, it is important not to give up, but to keep looking for ways to fill the world around you. What we experienced five years ago opened a window onto still undiscovered and unrecognized searches for creativity and dance form. But now the material created during the pandemic has gained a completely different breath, space, and meaning - we can once again touch one another, feel another person's living energy, and draw inspiration from it. In fact, even while working on the digital performance, the entire creative team understood that one day this had to reach the audience in a live performance, and now it will finally happen,” says D. Bārbale.
Creative team:
Choreographer: Dagmāra Bārbale
Director and set designer: Reinis Suhanovs
Video artist: Reinis Blūms
Lighting designer: Oskars Pauliņš
Composer: Mārtiņš Miļevskis
Author of vocal arrangements and conductor: Laura Leontjeva
Musical director: Kaspars Bārbals
The event was created with the support of VKKF.
