#Ukrainian #spring #songs #vesņankas #performed #Ziedonis #udestornī #festival #Liepaja #Article
At the “Ziedonis udestornī” festival in Liepāja, Ukrainian spring songs – vesņankas – will be performed
In the Karosta water tower, there will also be an opportunity to experience the mono performance of actor Eric Wilson “My Magadan”. Asking Wilson, who was born in exile and will be playing the poignant and personal one-man show “Mana Magadana” for the 107th time, what feelings take over when the story of deportation and totalitarian regime, about mother and the search for identity reaches the audience at a time when hostilities are taking place so close to Latvia, he answered – everything sounds even more poignant.
Actor and director Eric Wilson.
Photo: Inga Ozola/Latvijas Radio
“It was very strange, because I didn’t play the show “Mana Magadana” during covid, but I was asked by “Zoom” [platformā spēlēt], but I refused; then the war had started, then I thought how those songs would sound, which will be played here, but which are necessary and which cannot be taken out of context. “My Magadan” will sound, (..) it seems to me even sharper, even sharper! If we used to look at it, well, there was something to talk about, but now we understand that it is reality, it is today.”
Another event at the festival is singing. The unique space of the Karosta water tower with several floors is a special place to hear Slavic songs performed by the vocal duo – Ansis Bētiņš and Artūrs Čukurs, the organizer of the one-day music, art and contemporary theater festival and cultural development society “Tapala lapa” told Latvian Radio about it. representative Yvonda Wilson.
The organizer of the festival “Ziedonis udestornī” Ivonda Vilsone.
Photo: Inga Ozola/Latvijas Radio
“I have the feeling that the acoustics and the aura here are very suitable for the chants. The water tower is not used in such an angle. Their interest in the Slavic people, in spiritual chants, has been there for some time. They search, find out. What I really like about concert programs, that they not only sing, but also tell where the songs come from, how they found them. People around me say, well, Slavs… They don’t know, and it feels like they don’t don’t want to know. If you don’t know, then don’t accept it. I would like people to learn something new, expand their horizons, then we can accept it, whether we like it or not, and we can judge it,” said Wilson.
The vocal duo will especially highlight Ukrainian folklore from Kharkiv, Kyiv, Chernihiv and Transcarpathian regions. Along with the treasures of Ukrainian folklore, Croatian, Macedonian and Serbian folk songs and spiritual chants will also be heard. A special concert program “Songs of the Slavic people. Spring” has been prepared for the festival and event in the Karosta water tower.
Bētiņš, the representative of the duo, said: “The best thing to do at this moment is to directly look for folklore that Ukrainians have and are connected with spring and the arrival of flowers. In Ukrainian tradition and culture, this arrival of spring is celebrated and chanted with the so-called for vesnyankas – for spring songs. Although they are mostly one-voice and two-voice songs, they are mostly performed by children or women, we thought that perhaps the creation of such a program would be appropriate for this topic.”
The songs will tell about the arrival of spring, work, the search for peace and freedom, human relations with nature and the divine.
“We hope that with our voices we will announce spring both in the Karosta water tower and its surroundings,” said the member of the vocal duet. “The themes in the songs will resonate with what is currently happening in nature all around. Bird songs, the appearance of the sun, green fields and forests, waters and birds chirping.”
The Karosta water tower will be open from 9:00 a.m., thus the season will also begin for the Karosta water tower itself, which used to be an inaccessible object and was only open to art and visitors in recent years, now it is looked after by Rita Údre on a daily basis.
Karosta water tower supervisor Rita Údre
Photo: Inga Ozola/Latvijas Radio
“With this, we will open the season, usually the first event is the museum nights at the end of May, but this year we are not participating, so this will be the opening event. I assume that the event will be very close to the heart and enjoyable, we will wait for everyone to come and obey,” said Údre .
The festival will be opened in the afternoon by the “Drawing Theatre”, which will invite both adults and children, starting from the age of five, to participate in the creation of the show “Warm Drawing”. In an improvised performance of drawings on a huge piece of paper, artist Lote Vilma Vītiņa will draw a story with an ink pen, which the audience will create in cooperation with the narrator Vari Klausitats.
The festival is free to enjoy.
Karosta water tower
Photo: Inga Ozola/Latvijas Radio
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