Culture in Riga

It turns out that Riga is full of cultural events! There is: the opera, with different operas performed almost every night, the ballet, the Russian theatre, the (Latvian) Daleis theatre, concerts, movie festivals, museums, galleries. (Of the events I paid most attention to), this week and last week there were two Russian film festivals and an international music and film festival about modern(ized) folk music. I went to watch Пушкин. Последния дуэль (Pushkin. The last dual) and Агитбригада "Бей Врага!" (the translation requires too long of an explanation) - which I especially recommend - and to a performance of Motion Trio, three Polish accordionists who mix traditional folk music with modern alternative artsy music plus pop music and symphony orchestras. Below is the website of Motion Trio, where my accordionist-readers (Rita! Essie!) and others can listen to amazing (it is really beautiful!) accordion music. Which, unfortunately, was not what I heard tonight, since they performed with the Latvian Symphony Orchestra. One could barely hear the accordions, and it just felt like the group was given the chance to fool around with a real orchestra and, for some reason, they chose to perform pop music that sounded like film scores, seemingly impressing people by involving accordions in pop music and in symphony music. http://www.motiontrio.com/a2Home.html

Unfortunately I missed a performance by The Shin Egari, a group from Georgia - lively, passionate, and mixing traditional and modern music. And I didn't have the energy to attend a Latvian folk choir rehearsal yesterday.

There is also a holiday celebration of Martini Day this weekend (similar to Halloween, I think). There is an open-air "Ethnographic Museum" and this weekend there will be festivities with lots of masks.

Artists in Riga have traditionally been considered - forgive me my lay terminology - alternative, edgy, new. In particular, there are traditions of ceramic art, watercolor paintings, and wood carving. (Probably there are other traditions in art, as well, and there is much more to say about it, but it is only now getting cold enough for me to let myself go to museums instead of walking around the Old City, and so I haven't made it to the Fine Arts Museum yet.)

Also Latvia has an incredibly strong song and dance tradition, which is evident everywhere - for instance, at the protest last Saturday there were traditional songs (Dainas) performed live between politicians', journalists', and intellectuals' political speeches. There is even more to say about this, too, but I am also only yet to go to the folk music choir rehearsal, so I only know vaguely about Latvian song tradition.

And in Vilnius (Lithuania) there are even more exciting, or at least more extensively-organized, cultural events. This weekend is the Festival of Light (in response to the darker days and darkness of November), which involves many events throughout the city through the collaboration of artists and even scientists. For instance, the river will be lit from below, there will be bicycle-riders around the city projecting light designs on buildings, and in one of the parks there will be people in costumes lit from inside. (http://www.culturelive.lt/en/lux) I am hoping to go on Sunday, but I haven't decided yet...