The Remarkable Growth of Participation in the 2023 Song and Dance Festival Despite Covid-19 Restrictions: Statistical Data Reveals Surprising Increase in Number of Participants

However, this year the number of choirs participating in the Song Festival has increased. In 2018, there were 429 choirs, but this year there will be 454 choirs.

Also, 2,097 brass band musicians from 66 orchestras and 5,714 members of 580 brass band ensembles, vocal ensembles, folk music groups, amateur theaters and other independent groups will take part in the festival this year.

Foreign collectives will be particularly widely represented at the 2023 festival. In total, 88 diaspora collectives with 2587 participants will participate. In 2018, 84 diaspora collectives with 2411 participants participated.

“It was a huge surprise for us,” says LNKC Latvian stage dance expert Maruta Alpa, talking about the number of participants that has been reached at this festival, despite the restrictions of Covid-19 in previous years, which significantly affected the opportunities for independent collective rehearsals and concerts.

Statistical data show that the worry about the number of participants in the Song and Dance Festival had a serious basis. In 2021, only 42,300 people were registered as members of artistic collectives in Latvia. This is the smallest number since 2003, since such numbers have been collected at all, according to the data of the Central Statistics Office. In addition, it is 45% or almost half less than in 2018, when the previous Song and Dance Festival was held.

It is for this reason that during the preparation process of this Song and Dance Festival, the idea even appeared that the festival should be postponed to next year, in order to give longer recovery time to self-employed collectives. “If that happened, it would be much more difficult. But now the holiday has given an additional incentive, and we see that the participants are dancing in the elections and their eyes are shining,” sums up Alpa, adding that this year’s holiday comes just in time, so that after the pandemic, the people the dance movement could flourish again.

2023-06-29 19:51:24
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