The examination of the joint repertoire of the school youth folk dance groups of Ogre region has ended – a show

On April 26th and 27th of this year, the Ogre County School Youth Folk Dance Collective’s joint repertoire test took place in the Culture Center of Ogre County – a show in preparation for the Holidays – XIII Latvian School Youth Song and Dance Festival Dance Concert “I opened Laima’s Garden”.

These shows will take place all over Latvia in accordance with the regulations and schedule of events created by the State Education Content Center from March to May.

48 out of 50 dance groups in Ogre region performed at the folk dance show of Ogre region. 23 children’s and young people’s dance collectives operate in Ogre district schools, the other 27 collectives operate under the auspices of regional cultural institutions. In order for all regional dance collectives to be able to show their performance, the show was held for two days.

The folk dance show this year had the following tasks:

1. To motivate the members of folk dance groups for creative activity, for the enrichment of joint dancing and stage experience.
2. To evaluate the collective performance of folk dances in preparation for the big holiday concert “I opened Laima’s garden” and to provide methodological support to educators for the improvement of artistic performance.
3. Identify the qualitative and quantitative composition of the potential participants of the Festival.
4. Determine the level of learning of the holiday repertoire.

In order to realize these tasks, each of the collectives danced two dances in the show, the first of which was a dance from the festival repertoire, and the second was an optional dance.

Although the dancers of the Svetku co-repertoires will still learn, improve and polish the entire next dance season, already this year they collectively showed how they have done with some of all the dances in the repertoire in this dance season. The performance of folk dance collectives on each of the days of the show was evaluated by three dance experts:

• Choreographer, dance teacher, artistic director of Jēkabpils city dance ensemble “Pastalnieki” – Aija Rüliete;
• Choreographer, artistic director of the folk dance collective “Irbe” of the Mežciem elementary school and the “Pārdaugava cultural association” of the Riga state municipal institution “Pārdaugava culture association” of the youth dance collective “Imanta” of the cultural center “Imanta”, senior expert of the State Educational Content Center – Aija Konstante;
• The chairman of the jury commission on April 26 – head of youth dance groups of Balvu and Gulbene district schools, artistic director of children’s dance group “Balvu vilcins” of Balvu Culture and Recreation Center and “Knausīši” dance group of Gulbene Culture Center –Zane Meyer;
• Chairman of the jury commission on April 27 – choreographer, artistic director of the children’s dance ensemble “Teiksmiņa” of the Riga city municipality concert organization “AVE SOL” – Inga Pulmane.

The performances of all collectives were evaluated according to 5 criteria in a 10-point system, assigning an appropriate grade of quality. At the end of the show, the team leaders were honored for their work and received diplomas from the Ogre Region Education Board. At the end of the show, the managers met with the jury to discuss and analyze the collective performance in detail, to listen to recommendations.

The organizers of this event were Gundega Spūle, head of the Ogre region’s children and youth folk dance group, in cooperation with the Ogre region’s Education Board and the Ogre region’s Culture Center.

While supporting the dancers and telling about the work invested, all the participants received strengthening gifts prepared by the regional businessman and supporter “SIA Fazer Latvija”.

The information was prepared by Gundega Spūle, a methodologist in the field of folk dance education in Ogre region

Photo: Anita Stukāne and Ilze Ušpele