I just wanted to dance, not perform.
As a child, I desperately wanted to be part of a Latvian folk dance group. I remember being enchanted by the costumes, the feeling of being part of something bigger - the circle, the rhythm, the joy. My mother took me to a group when I was very young, still in kindergarten. But what I found wasn’t joy, it was fear.
The teacher was stern, obsessed with perfect performance. She’d yell most of the time when we made mistakes, or grab and drag. I was taller than most boys my age, and she didn’t like that. She wanted symmetry, boys and girls of matching height, moving in perfect pairs. I was new, or maybe just a bit dreamy and didn’t pick up the steps right away. So I was often left out. Sitting at the edge, watching, not dancing. I performed once or twice, usually in the part where only girls danced. But the harshness, the constant pressure to be “perfect” rather than simply present, made it impossible to enjoy. Something closed inside me. Same feeling, I got in the chorus. Again: performance over participation and joy.
Maybe that’s why even today, I feel both admiration and resistance when I see traditional Latvian folk grand performances. They’re beautiful. But I also wonder: when did it stop being something we do together imperfectly, and become something we watch?
From communal joy and participation to performance and spectatorship, and it’s not just in Latvia. It’s a wider cultural evolution tied to nationalism, identity, modernity, and the professionalisation of folk art.
Latvian singing and dancing traditions, especially as embodied in the Dziesmu un Deju svētki (Song and Dance Festival), are globally admired for their scale, precision, and emotional power. Thousands of people moving and singing in unison is a powerful symbol of national unity and identity. The experience of witnessing it can be deeply moving, and these performances have immense cultural value.
In the Beginning: Folk Culture Was a Shared Life
In the 19th century and earlier, folk singing and dancing weren’t staged events. They were part of daily life:
work songs,
seasonal rituals (Jāņi, Miķeļi, Meteņi),
weddings, funerals,
gatherings where everyone sang and danced.
Everyone joined in. No auditions. No formal steps. No audience.
The first Latvian Song Festival in 1873 was a collective act of cultural preservation and unity during a time of foreign rule. Singing together became a way to affirm identity and resilience.
The Shift:
Over time, several forces pushed folk culture toward formalisation:
Nation-Building & Identity
A nation needs symbols: a flag, an anthem, and an organised culture.
The festival became a way to visibly represent “Latvianness” - tidy, collective, disciplined.
Synchrony, patterns, and mass choreography show unity, strength, and order, especially powerful during times of occupation or post-independence.
Soviet Ideology Era Influence
During Soviet times, folk traditions were staged as sanitised, choreographed expressions of “happy people in harmony.”
The state promoted grand, mass performances to align with communist ideals, think of thousands moving as one.
Folk culture became institutionalised: professionalised choirs, dance troupes, and strict standards.
Modernisation & Performance Culture
As Latvia urbanised and modernised, folk culture left the village and entered the stage.
We stopped dancing and singing together in fields and started watching others do it in costumes under lights.
Competitions and perfectionism made it more about aesthetics than experience.
The Result: Participatory Culture Evolved into Representation Culture
Singing became something for choirs.
Dancing became something for trained groups.
Folk costumes became uniforms for performance, not expressions of everyday life.
Children were sorted into roles: performers (talented) or non-performers.
Many people now carry stories of being left out, judged, or shamed for not being “good enough” to participate. Some internalise that as a lifelong block around singing or moving freely.
Still Beautiful — But Is Something Missing?
This is not to diminish the beauty or meaning of large-scale folk performances. They are awe-inspiring and important cultural rituals in themselves.
But alongside them, there is also space for something smaller, older, and more human.
Because your body still remembers the original purpose of these traditions:
to belong,
to feel alive,
to merge with others through movement and voice,
and not to sit silently in a chair, applauding someone else.
That feeling of being left out — it’s a healthy soul signal, your longing for re-participation in a culture that once belonged to everyone.
Circles where everyone sings together.
Simple dances where no one is excluded.
Shared experience without an audience.
Maybe the performance ends by inviting the observers to join, a choir piece turning into a sing-along (like in a rock concert when the lead is given to the public), a dance performance culminating in a final round where the "skilled" dancers draw in the watchers, already softened and swaying in their seats.
At least, that is my longing when I witness performances by our small community groups. I don’t want just to watch, I want to join in and not as someone who has trained and rehearsed, but simply as a fellow human, welcomed into the moment.
Tradition isn’t only what’s preserved in performance.
It’s also what’s felt — together, in the moment.
“Dance” (an imperfect and still unfinished artwork of mine) .