29th Festival of Music Inspired by Folklore “Sounds of the North” :: 29 July - 2 August, Gdańsk
(2008 07 15 23:15)
Festival of Music Inspired by Folklore “Sounds of the North” was started 30 years ago as a review of Kashubian folk bands, which in time widened its reach to participation of folk bands from Northern Poland and finally – representatives from the Baltic countries. The festival has been functioning under the title “Sounds of the North” since the past few years. It is a cyclical, international event, presenting traditional music from the countries of northern hemisphere, organised by the Baltic Sea Culture Centre in Gdańsk.
In the previous editions there participated bands from Sweden, Germany, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Greenland, Ireland, Russia and Poland. We hosted representatives from such exotic nations as Buryats, Yakuts, Chukchi people, Karelians, Mordvins, Tuvans, Eskimos.
This year, 29th edition of the Festival is based on the idea of presenting regions, not the particular countries. Regions, though their borders often do not coincide with the national borders – i.e. Republic of Karelia (Finland/ Russia) or Lapland (Norway/ Russia/ Sweden/ Finland), truly are very characteristic and fairly homogeneous.
The Festival consists of two parts: four days of dance workshops and two concert days. Dance workshops will be led by dancers and musicians from Denmark, Sweden, Estonia and Poland. The workshops finale – The Night of the Dance, the dance party with the participation of public and, simultaneously, the show of the most characteristic dances from particular countries will take place on the second day of the Festival. The workshop serve the noble purpose, that traditional village culture may be perceived by its practicing, not by passive observation of professional bands. During The Night of the Dance, the instructors will give concerts of their countries’ music and combine it with short dance instruction, invite the public to dance and the participants of the workshop will show their dancing skills off.
The main star of the concert part of the Festival is Warsaw Village Band (Poland), the most famous Polish folk band in the world. In St. John Centre also will perform Danish group HABADEKUK (Denmark) – 9 persons band, which is leading by Kristian Bugge – young talented violinist. The last day there will be two concerts of Estonian group RO: TORO (Estonia) with two masters of playing bagpipes and TORGEIR VASSVIK – the Saami artist, who perform laplandish songs according to the traditional technique of singing – joik.
The accompanying event of the Festival will be the play of Laplandish theatre BEAIVVAS, which will be staged at the St. John’s Center.
More information and the programme is available on the Festival's website.