The 27th International Baltic Ballet Festival has been opened at the Origo Shopping Centre, following a long tradition. The opening charity concert in the atrium of the shopping centre’s new building gave visitors the opportunity to watch jazz, hip hop, ballet and various other styles of dance performed by the National Ballet, Riga Ballet School, dance schools Benefice, Buras, Karuselis, as well as dancers from Tālis Sils’ Ballet Academy.

The 27th International Baltic Ballet Festival will take place in Riga, Rēzekne, Preiļi and Ventspils this year, and, as usual, it will offer a colourful and extensive programme. The festival will host dance companies from Norway and Portugal, two film screenings and the exhibition ‘Latvian National Ballet – 100’, which will be on show at the Mentzendorff House. On 7 October, the traditional opening charity concert took place at the Origo Shopping Centre, followed by the ballet cinema night ‘Latvian Ballet Code’ at the Splendid Palace cinema.

Baiba Broka Maļinovska, Marketing Manager of Origo Shopping Centre: “Since 1999, the International Baltic Ballet Festival has been held at Origo, integrating high-quality artistic performances into the public space, providing meaningful and aesthetically appealing entertainment opportunities for the shopping centre’s visitors. This year, we are continuing our tradition of offering ballet performances outside the usual stage environment and “frame”, and this time the opening event took place in the atrium of Origo’s new building, which has become one of the most popular meeting places in our centre.”

“We are very grateful for the long and successful cooperation with Origo, and this year we also experienced a pleasant change in the format of the opening event. The atrium of the new building is modern and stylish, as were the performances of the opening charity concert. Every year we meet at Origo to celebrate the ballet festival, and this year it is really special, also because the festival was not held for two years due to pandemic conditions,” says Lita Beiris, Director of the International Baltic Ballet Festival.

On 13 October the New Hall of the Latvian National Opera and on 15 October the Riebiņi Culture Centre in Preiļi County will host the performance ‘The Loft’ by Jo Stromgren Modern Ballet Company (Norway). It explores the truly human mechanisms of defence and survival with gallows humour that makes people laugh at the knots and twists of evil and mistakes.

On 21 October, the modern ballet company Quorum Ballet (Portugal) will perform ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in Rēzekne, Embassy of Latgale GORS and on 24 October in VEF Culture Palace. The story of the performance brings us into the world of true, passionate love, which nothing and nobody can destroy. A love that is blind, a love that is so strong that not even death could overcome it.

On 28 October, the concert program ‘Giving the Floor to Young Latvian Choreographers’ will take place at the Theatre House Jūras vārti in Ventspils, and on 29 October, the festival will close with the film screening ‘A Night with Ballerina’. Information about the festival is available on the International Baltic Ballet Festival website, as well as on the festival’s Facebook page. Tickets for the festival events can be purchased at the Biļešu Paradīze box office.