Interview with Saulius Liausa, director of the Lithuanian National Culture Centre
The wonderful 100-year anniversary song and dance festival in Lithuania last year included multiple art forms and brought together thousands of performers, audience members, and viewers. The celebration was like a powerful, unstoppable wave – which appeared to guarantee that such festivals would continue for another hundred years. However, the subsequent conference of Baltic states in November, 2024 had a surprising theme: „The jubilee is over. Do we still have a reason to celebrate?“
1. Please comment on this rather strange conference theme, especially the question „Do we still have a reason to celebrate?“. What issues discussed in the conference would be of interest to our diaspora choir directors and readers ?
The song festival tradition is a miracle. Its history and origins are in Switzerland, Germany, and other European cities. The tradition arrived in the Baltic states more than 100 years ago, but it so happens that currently song festivals are held only in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. It‘s a phenomenon! Together, the three Baltic countries had the song festival tradition recognized by UNESCO as a „Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity“. That is why we have expert committees, organize conferences, and discuss these questions.
Song festivals do not occur on their own – they are a way of life. That is why UNESCO recognized not song festivals, but the song festival tradition, whose continuance requires a large amount of work. People living in this 21-st century have a wide range of activities to choose from, how and where to spend their free time. This particularly applies to the younger generation. How do we attract our youth – away from digital / computer interests towards activities that require significant work? The song festival tradition is connected to an older, more measured outlook on life and our national values. That is why we are concerned how these festivals will appear in the future.
There are a number of fundamental challenges. Both choir directors and choir members are getting older. As time goes on, the educational system prepares less and less choir directors, as this specialty has become less popular. We see this effect not only with us, but also in neighboring countries. The work of artistic directors is not well compensated by the government; as a result young people do not choose this specialty.
Demographic trends pose another challenge. More and more of our youth are moving to the larger cities: Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda. In order for the song festival tradition to remain vibrant, it needs to be continued in every small town and village. First we need to convince a teaching specialist to agree to work in a remote location – then we frequently find there is no one remaining to be taught. Grade school and high school youth in the villages continue to dance and sing. However, when they leave for university studies, they rarely return. Once again the chain is broken.
Various school reforms and other changes are not helping the song festival tradition to continue development. These issues are of concern to us, as well as the Latvians and Estonians. So we need to be thoughtful and consider the future – perhaps that is why a contoversial theme for the conference was chosen: „The jubilee is over. Do we still have a reason to celebrate?“
2. My understanding is you have attended one or more North American Lithuanian song festivals. What were your impressions?
I attended the song festival in Chicago and dance festivals in North America as well as other countries, and saw how traditions continue to be cherished. Recently a film documenting the last song festival in Lithuania was released. It shows that the festival is not just a matter of song and dance, but much more – something that brings us together, unifies us, and allows a small nation to literally measure its connection to tradition, its culture, its statehood. It is an atmosphere similar to the days of the Sąjūdis (independence) movement. This characteristic, the feeling of being a part of one‘s nation, the verification of one‘s identity – I would say first of all was strongest in the diaspora. But during the last song festival in Lithuania, we felt it as well.
I sometimes say that expatriates love the Lithuanian culture more than we do. Because being in contact with one‘s culture in the diaspora is a goal, whereas for us it is something we are given. We don‘t always appreciate what we have been given in the land where we were born and live. The diaspora organizes concerts and festivals with a completely different emotion. That is why one sees such a clear and strong characteristic of your song festivals – it is immediately evident – the great love and respect for the heritage our fathers and forefathers have left us.
3. How are song festivals in Lithuania and North America different, or is it even possible to compare them?
Quite frankly, whether in Lituania or here, there are no differences in the festival structure, repertoire, and delivery system. The choirs sing marvelously, and when they come to song festivals in Lithuania, they interact as equals with equals. There is no separate way to look at the diaspora. The motto „One Family – One Nation“ tells it all, and in every respect expresses the essence of our song festival traditions.
4. What did you admire in our song festivals? Was there anything useful that could be adapted to song festivals in Lithuania?
Because I have a leadership role and responsibility for the song festivals in Lithuania, I am always looking for creative moments whether I am watching a song festival here, or in Latvia, or Estonia. I am always thinking – how would that look in our song festival, what can we use, what answers certain questions.
As far as preparations go, I was struck by your practice of providing recordings of the individual voice parts. That way singers who have difficulty attending rehearsals can learn their voice part while driving a car or at some other convenient time, and attend rehearsals later, already knowing their part. We successfully adopted this technique, which was especially useful during the pandemic and even for the latest song festival. So this is something we borrowed from your extensive experience.
Let me mention Europe, because using your North American example we began encouraging the song festival tradition in a new generation living in European countries. We wish to demonstrate how to maintain Lithuanian culture while living elsewhere. For children education is an obvious path – they attend Saturday school, learn, and have opportunities to interconnect. For adults we see no better method than to join an arts collective – if you dance or sing, you will gather together regularly, surrounded by your family, friends, acquaintances, and relatives. Then the community begins to celebrate holidays, organize concerts, and other valuable activities. This idea has been embraced by many European Lithuanian communities. Many new artistic collectives are being born, notwithstanding shortages of group directors, singers, or dancers. So in this case we followed your excellent example of how to preserve our Lithuanian culture.
5. Please explain to our readers how Lithuania can help our North American song festival organizers, especially choir directors.
We are fully prepared to provide technical assistance, whether it concerns repertoire, dance music recordings or diagrams. It’s not complicated to visit each other in person, for your group directors to attend our summer seminars and interact professionally. Directors of groups in Europe visit us frequently and are very pleased with our assistance. I know that our experts Vidmantas Mačiulskis and Laima Kisielienė provide assistance at the Dainava summer camps. We now have a person working for us at the National Culture Centre who is specifically responsible for supporting Lithuanian communities worldwide, assisting them in maintaining Lithuanian culture, and strengthening the song festival tradition.
Communication these days has gotten easier. I believe these connections should be more fully exploited. When you see what others are doing, how they create, share, advise – it somehow becomes easier for both the collective and its leader to function. Everything else is specific to your way of life, because motivating and encouraging children to maintain their Lithuanian culture is exceedingly difficult. We sometimes say in jest that it‘s not children who attend collectives, but parents and grandparents – because if the elders don‘t drive their children to rehearsals, they will not participate. That is a huge commitment and understanding of what is important in life.
6. All of our activities are on a volunteer basis. Directors of collectives work without compensation. How can work continue when the older generation is retiring and there are few willing to take their place?
Much in our world is based on enthusiasm; money is money. It‘s a matter of personal realization, it‘s a matter of time, perhaps the essence of the matter is understanding – why am I doing this? When that perception arises after a festival or a good concert, that‘s when you feel the connection. I think that is the most significant answer – one‘s purpose in life, what do I live for.
It goes without saying – without this consciousness and one‘s total commitment, any activities would be impossible, whether in North America or Lithuania. In Lithuania there are also many collectives, particularly in larger cities, where directors are not compensated or rely on contributions from group members. Looking more generally throughout the world, we see a fair amount of activity that depends on understanding one‘s mission. On the other hand, there are various charitable foundations or other possiblities – perhaps one just needs to find enthusiastic assistants, who can help the group director with organizational work, and finding financial compensation. After all a person has to live from something.
7. Should song festivals continue in the diaspora, when one-third of the performers are not from North American communities? Or to phrase the question differently „Do we still have a reason to celebrate?“
It‘s not an easy question. It‘s one thing to try and say something intelligent, but in reality times have changed. Postwar émigrés (dipukai / displaced persons) had a clear reason for emigrating and a clear mission to maintain their culture. Today Lithuanians have emigrated for a multitude of other reasons and have a variety of interests. There are many small nations throughout the world whose emigrant community efforts to maintain their culture are minimal. Perhaps once a year they gather for some festival – maybe the Irish dress in green, dye the Chicago River green, and that‘s the end of it. How to continue organizing song and dance festivals, as you currently have been doing, is a much more subtle issue, which doesn‘t seem to have a single answer.
Creative collaboration is useful in all aspects: for Lithuanians from our country to come, breathe in all of your dedication, and feel your warm emotions and love for the Lithuanian culture. Similarly, it is useful for diaspora collectives to have friends in Lithuania, who can help when visiting Lithuania or a song festival, or who can share methodology, or assist in preparing a concert. Moreover it is such a positive endorsement of your song festivals that so many choirs from Lithuania want to visit, see, and hear – because the song festivals here are not only musically but emotionally strong. I have heard comments asking „how can we get there, it‘s a dream of ours“. People are interested, they travel, the world is getting smaller. To visit one another is no longer complicated. I believe that in the future you will need to deal with a large wave of those wish to come and participate in the North American festivals. One only needs to find something useful from this relationship – not just that they came and they went. I think that it surely possible to find common ground, technical assistance, and other forms of collaboration.
Thank you for this interview. I truly believe that during the song festival we will rejoice being together, and that Lithuanian songs will resound in our continent for many years to come. We welcome all the choirs participating from Lithuania, remembering that we are all „One Family – One Nation“.
