Saturday, July 27
If possible, please come to the workshops 10 minutes early to guarantee a spot!
Folk dancing on the beach
Basketball court at Lake Viljandi beach
SAT 27.07 at 10.00
The best way to start your morning is to listen to the music in the best possible way – through dancing! Two sisters Mia Marta Ruus and Paula Kristiine Ruus musicians ask you to join them on Friday and Saturday morning to dance on the basketball court at Lake Viljandi beach so you can start the day well, letting traditional music into your bones and lifting your mood!
We dance old social dances and spice it up with a few waltzes, polkas, flat foot waltzes and rheinländers. Bring a friend or come alone, you’ll find a dancing partner on the court!
Baby singing and playing group / Kreete Viira
Sakala Centre
SAT 27.07 at 11.00
Target audience: children aged 0–2 with their parents
Traditional music teacher Kreete Viira invites mothers and fathers to bring their babies to the group where they play age-appropriate games, singing games and sing songs which you can memorise and repeat at home to promote the love of traditional culture in your children.
Men’s singing group
Lokaal Sahara (Posti 6)
SAT 27.07 at 11.00 / Lauri Õunapuu
Target audience: men of all ages, no women allowed.
The mandatory voice and mind wakeup session for all men on all three festival days. Men’s singing group is a chamber of secrets where men twirl their moustaches in the dark, sing manly songs and talk about manly things. Bring your favourite songs to the singing group to share with others.
Women’s singing group
Bonifatius Guild, 2nd floor (Väike-Turu 8)
FRI 26.07 at 11.00 / Women from Kihnu
SAT 27.07 at 11.00 / Women from Sõrve
SUN 28.07 at 11.00 / Kairi Leivo
Target audience: women of all ages, no men allowed.
Women have preserved our traditional singing culture throughout centuries. The folklore archive is filled with songs from our female ancestors, where they talk about their thoughts and feelings. Which of these songs speak to the women of today? Which songs will the women of today leave to their children? We invite all women to join us on three festival mornings to sing about what you’re thinking and feeling. Bring your favourite songs with you so you can share with the others.
Children’s singing and playing group / Kreete Viira
Sakala Centre
SAT 27.07 at 12.00
Target audience: children aged 3–6 with their parents
Kreete Viira teaches children and their families age-appropriate games, singing games and songs. We invite children with their parents to attend. Later on, you can play these games at home yourself.
A vocal Journey from the steppes of Persia and Central Asia / Nissim Lugasi (Israel)
Chamber Hall of Traditional Music Centre
SAT 27.07 at 12.30
An in-depth vocal journey where we will develop vocal skills and techniques from the folklore and classic music of Central Asia.
The workshop will include practicing breathing and body techniques typical of Eastern singing, familiarity with Maqam singing and the quarter tones and rhythms that characterize these regions. In the process we will learn a Piyut (sacred song) from the Jewish tradition of the Caucasus Mountains region.
Nissim Lugasi is a master musician, singer and tar player, an expert of classical Persian and Ottoman Turkish singing, which he's been researching and breathing his whole life. Nowadays, he is considered one of the leading voices in his field in Israel. For the past 7 years, Nissim has been the director of Maqamat School of Eastern Music in Safed, Israel.
Dance School
The Green Stage
SAT 27.07 at 13.30 / Dances from Ruhnu. Tallinn Dance House Musicians
SAT 27.07 at 15.30 / Round dances from Saaremaa. Tammeougu Mari and the girls of Sõrve
If you want to practice for the dance house and get the steps right, then come to the Dance School! Superb musicians, singers and dancers will show you how the Estonian country folk and townspeople danced in the old times.
Dances from Ruhnu
Jakob Steffensson was born on the Ida-Steffens farm in Ruhnu in 1924 and, like other Ruhnu Swedes, had to flee to Sweden in 1944. He documented Ruhnu Swedish heritage and history and wrote several books accompanied by valuable video material. Ruhnu dance tunes, especially those from Peeter Rooslaid and Elias Schönberg, have gained a lot of recognition in recent years thanks to the quartet "Sounds and Stories from Ruhnu Island."
Recently discovered writings and video recordings by Jakob Steffensson reveal new layers of Ruhnu dances, providing fascinating insights into the Ruhnu versions of well-known social dances in Estonia as well as more archaic wedding dances, all of which will be introduced in the workshop. Participants will have the chance to try out what they've learned at midnight in the Dance House.
Traditional music from Portugal / Vasco Ribeiro Casais (Portugal)
Chamber Hall of Traditional Music Centre
SAT 27.07 at 14.30
Omiri, a solo project by the multi-instrumentalist musician Vasco Ribeiro Casais, is one of the most original projects reinventing Portuguese roots music. The workshop focuses on the musical diversity of Portuguese culture, showing the various ways of approaching and modernising old traditional music. As a multi-instrumentalist, Vasco will also use the various instruments he uses in his project, presenting and talking a little about them.
Through Vasco's musical vision and his involvement with local Portuguese communities – which results in video recordings that are later manipulated and serve as basis for his composition and musical improvisation – portugality from the north to the south of the country is a constant living picture, with musicians and sound landscapes from all over the country playing and singing as if they were part of the same universe.
They were strangers, but nevertheless our kin / Sofia Joons
Bonifatius Guild, 2nd floor (Väike-Turu 8)
SAT 27.07 at 15.00
In her doctoral thesis, defended this spring, Sofia Joons answers the question of how the Estonian Swedes used songs to create, strengthen, and reshape their identity, especially in the 1920s and 1930s. How were traditional songs performed on stage, what were the themes in the songs of Riguldi village singer Mats Ekman, and which songs did the youngsters of that time collect in their songbooks? Sofia also teaches these songs in the workshop and explores what type of tools of identity creation are the songs she studied: traditional, author, and popular songs.