249 folk groups from all provinces of Latvia to take part in festival Baltica in June

RIGA - 249 folk groups from all provinces of Latvia will take part in international folklore festival Baltica, which will take place in Riga, Sigulda and Daugavpils from June 26 to 29, Jana Verdina from the Latvian National Center for Culture told LETA.

Latgale will be represented by 87 groups and a total of 1,030 participants taking part in various events of the festival. Vidzeme will be represented by 50 groups and 624 participants, and Kurzeme by 48 groups and 541 participants.

30 folklore groups with 454 participants will represent Riga at the festival, and there will also be 19 groups with 303 participants from Zemgale and nine groups with 103 participants from Selija.

The theme of this year's festival is language and its character in music, songs, dance, stories and the way musicians play.

The festival will also feature two Latvian diaspora groups - Northern England Latvian folklore group Dudalnieki and folk group Revele from Estonia.

Also participating in the Baltica festival will be four foreign groups. Estonia will be represented this year by folklore group Siidisosaro (very close sisters in Estonian), Lithuania by the folk music choir Poringes (Lithuanian for fairy tale), Ukraine by folklore group Perlynka, and Peru by folk music group Yawar Peru, formed in 1988 in Riga by Peruvian students studying aviation in Latvia.

Since 1987, festival Baltica takes place every time in another Baltic country and is jointly organized by state and municipal institutions. This will be its 13th time in Latvia, and the festival will gather ethnographic bands, folk song and dance groups, traditional musicians, handicrafters, storytellers and other keepers of the living cultural heritage from all three Baltic countries.