When is this holiday?
This public holiday takes place in July on the last day of the closing day of the General Latvian Song and Dance Festival. The festival takes place every five years. The next festival takes place in 2028.
On Thursday October 2nd 2014, the Saeima adopted in the final reading amendments to the Law on Public Holidays, Remembrance and Festival Days setting forth that the final day of the Latvian Song and Dance Festival will now be a public holiday, and if the final performances fall on a Saturday or Sunday, the following business day will also be a holiday.
According to experts from the Ministry of Culture who drafted the amendments to the Law, the intent of this provision is to facilitate the involvement of all Latvian Song and Dance Festival participants, to promote a sense of shared national cultural values and a feeling of belonging to Latvia, as well as to highlight a festival to which UNESCO has deservedly granted the status of Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage.
About the Festival
The Latvian Song and Dance Festival (Latvian: Vispārējie latviešu Dziesmu un Deju svētki) is one of the largest amateur choral and dancing events in the world and an important event in Latvian culture and social life.
The All-Latvian Song Festival has been held since 1873, normally every five years, with the Latvian Dance Festival component added in 1948.
In 2003, it was announced that the tradition of the Song and Dance Celebration in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania is a masterpiece of the intangible and oral culture of humanity, and in 2008 it was included in the UNESCO Representative List of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity as the Baltic Song and Dance Festival.
In 2005, the Song and Dance Celebration Act was passed. It aims to preserve, develop and pass on to future generations the tradition of the Song and Dance Celebration. The Law includes the General Latvian Song and Dance Festival and the Latvian School Youth Song and Dance Festival as two components of this tradition. The adoption of the law essentially means that the Latvian state is responsible for the existence and continuation of the holiday.
