Valmiera Summer Theater Festival

The main theme of this year's festival is Freedom. In total, nine productions will be offered to the audience, six of which will be new works, starting with performances for children and ending with contemporary art, opera and movement productions, while three will be performances that were popular with the audience from previous years and also won the "Gamers' Night" award. The festival program and tickets are planned to be announced in May.

The focus of the festival will be the theme of Freedom of Thought, highlighting the importance of freedom and thinking (but not only) in this difficult time, when Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine every day; at a time when what is happening in the information space divides society, the opportunity to express oneself freely, to be free in the most diverse senses, is particularly relevant. This phenomenon will be viewed in the context of performances as an opportunity to be independent in one's thoughts and actions, to unleash one's creative potential. Festival director Reinis Suhanovs: "We live in a time when we follow online how the nation unites to fight for the opportunity to be free and decide our future. We are in a situation where we must clearly stand on the side of freedom. The Valmiera Summer Theater Festival will try to do what it does best – to organize a platform where artists and spectators can meet to experience how diverse the world is, and would cultivate the close relationship between thinking and acting. In my opinion, it is especially important at a time when we experience the unveiling of the mask of evil and the birth of heroes."

One of the biggest events of the festival will be a large-format concert on the stage of Valmiera with the participation of brass band "Rīga" and several hundred choristers, which will update the music of the "alternative and non-commercial" genre created twenty to thirty years ago. Arrangements by six contemporary composers - Jēkab Nīmans, Emīl Zilbert, Platon Buravicka, Sabīne Ķezbera, Oskars Herliņas and Edgars Mākens - will be performed by a choir and a brass band, and the works of nearly 20 representatives of Latvian "underground" music, such as Pest of a Child, Hospitāļu iela, Trobels , Non Skid, Childhood Militia and many more.

This year, several productions of the festival will also tour Latvia, offering the audience two works created within the framework of the festival - the new work "Hamock Commune" directed by Sabīne Ozoliņa will visit various places in Valmiera region in May and June, while the play about football "Victory is a Moment" will also be available in Riga after the festival , in Liepāja and Gulbene.

The Valmiera summer theater festival is organized by the Valmiera theater in cooperation with the municipality of Valmiera region and its supporters for the seventh year. More at valmierasfestivals.lv.

Author of the visual identity of this year's festival: Aleksandrs Breže.

The information was prepared by:
Lija Lauze,
Valmiera Summer Theater Festival

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