Five on Friday: the Baltimore Song & Dance Festival edition

The XIV Vispārējie latviešu dziesmu un deju svētki ASV kicks off in Baltimore today with the opening ceremony in the Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel! Whether you’re joining the festivities in person or virtually, I hope you’re as excited as I am to be in Baltimore; here are the top five things I’m looking forward to this song & dance festival!

1. All the kid-friendly events. For a full list see the event website, but between Saturday’s theater show “Emil and the Detectives” out of San Francisco, Sunday’s morning children’s activities, the Kids’ Musical Morning with Iļģi and the special youth ticket prices to the kopkoŗa koncerts & folk dancing extravaganzas, it won’t be hard to keep the kids busy during the festival. However, for those moments of down-time between events…

2. …there are plenty of family friendly destinations within walking distance of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Start with the 20,000 animals living in the National Aquarium, with its dozens of award-winning habitats, 4-D films and live demonstrations. Continue to one of the most impressive military ship collections in the world, the Historic Ships collection of 4 ships and the Knoll Lighthouse. Take in the view of Baltimore and the Chesapeake Bay from the Top of the World. Or head to the Port Discovery Children’s Museum, considered one of the top five children’s museums in the country. For more ideas, check out the festival website. But if you would rather not leave the hotel, just head up to the fifth floor mezzanine where you will find…

3. …the Printful Stage. We welcomed the Latvian custom printing company to the Carolinas with open arms last fall, and are happy to see that they’ve already made themselves at home and found a way to give back to the Latvian community! In addition to printing a portion of the attendees t-shirts, Printful is a generous sponsor of this summer's festival. All attendees are invited to perform on the Printful stage (having pre-registered here), and singers, musicians and dancers already scheduled include Sienāzītis, Zelta Sietiņš, Sudrabavots and Nemiers, the Latvian youth rock band out of DC. In between sets, head down to the ballroom – you’ll want to bring your wallet for…

4. …the tirdziņš. No Latvian festival is complete without a market wherein to purchase your gifts, souvenirs, crafts and festival merchandise! Whether you’re shopping for jewelry, art, textiles or literature, well known distributors such as Baltic Imports will be there, in addition to popular Latvian artisans such as Krikis Jewelers, Normunds Treijs Designs, Baltic Santas and much, much more! Stay tuned to Instagram for updates on vendors throughout the weekend.

5. There are dozens of other things I’m looking forward to, but as this is a top five list here’s one last item which would come it at the very top if I was listing according to importance… the fam. It’ll be cousins, aunts and uncles, godparents and grandparents; some will be performing at events, while others will be spending some time with the boys while Roberts and I enjoy some of the evening events. We’ll hopefully have time in between all the events to catch up with family and friends, but I can already imagine that the song & dance festival will be over in the blink of an eye…