Greetings from Latvia!

Last week, the research team of the Latvijas Kultūras akadēmija / Latvian Academy of Culture – Rūta Muktupāvela, Agnese Karlsone, and Aleida Bertran – together with ethnomusicologist Valdis Muktupāvels, began collecting data and carrying out participant observation for the investigation of contemporary collective singing practices.

The team joined the International Baltica Folklore Festival that took place through the streets of Riga, and filled the Old Town with songs, music, dances, and stories. More than 3000 participants from all of Latvia as well as foreign guests delighted the festival with 35 different concerts, processions, singing and dancing.

Throughout the weekend The CRIES Project were able to experience the truly colourful and inspiring festival as they are currently conducting interviews and observing participants.
One of their main focus areas during these interviews has been nuancing the context in which collective singing takes place, as well as the concept of crisis.

The International Folklore Festival “Baltica” has been held in a different Baltic country since 1987, bringing together folklore groups and ethnographic ensembles, chapels and folklore dance groups, craftsmen, storytellers and other keepers of living cultural heritage from all three Baltic countries. Next year, the festival will be held in Estonia and will return to Latvia in 2028, where they will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the festival’s first holding in Latvia.

The CRIES Project is a transnational research project lead by PL Katrine Frøkjær Baunvig and is supported by CHANSE, Collaboration of Humanities and Social Sciences in Europe and HERA- Humanities in the European Research Area