Two researchers of Liepāja University -Vēsma Lēvalde and Sandra Okuņeva - have researched the history of theatre tradition in Liepāja and are working on a video story script. The background narration by Emīls Dreiblats has already been produced in the "Lighthouse" sound recording studio.
The video story is intended to present a reference material as part of the cycle "Watercolour of Liepāja Culture", the idea of which was born in the context of Liepāja's drive to become the European Capital of Culture in 2027, the project manager and theatre scholar Vēsma Lēvalde, told irliepaja.lv.
A year ago, this cycle has already presented the video story "Liepāja Symphony Orchestra. The music road to the Great Amber", which includes the most important events and personalities of Liepāja's music history until the restoration of Latvia's independence. The story of theatre history will also cover a similar period - from the mid-18th century to the early 1990s.
"The theatre tradition is one of the richest cultural traditions in Latvia. Its local uniqueness is its close fusion with music -opera, operetta and popular music. Theatre also synthesizes visual and movement arts. In Liepāja, the theatre tradition is also characterized by the synergy of amateur and professional theatre, as well as the blending of the original German and later Russian theatre traditions, which evolves into Latvian theatre. At the same time, in the 1930s, various minority theatre events took place in Liepāja as well, while in the Soviet years two professional theatres were playing an active part of the cultural life - the Latvian State Liepāja Theatre and the Russian Red-Flag Baltic Fleet Theatre. Moreover, Liepāja Theatre is the only theatre in Latvia where all these art forms -dramatic, musical, puppet theatre and even ballet - have coexisted for a long time," says Vēsma Lēvalde about the idea of the video story.
The script visualizes a 15-minute popular science video story with rich visual material. For this purpose, the authors digitized more than 100 photographs and processed several video recordings from theatre, museum and private archives. The visual image will be created by "DavidsMediaLV".
"The History of Liepāja Theatre Tradition" will be available free of charge to everyone in the electronic network of libraries, as well as for non-commercial use by the project's sponsors.