Buoyancy

In sunny, but a little bit cold Saturday, as made for walk in pine wood, being admired about multi-colored rhododendrons. Every few moments are seen ant heaps, which loves this place. In rhododendron farm central part is a pond, where, days in comfort, spend duck couples. For one of them, already four lively ducklings. Walking a being admired by rhododendron blossom brightness, you can spend not just one hour in this farm. Just insects don’t give a minute in peace. They’re so many this year.

Yesterday at the Riga Independent Theatre "Skatuve" the annual concert of the end of school year of the flamenco dance studio "Duende" took place. A variety of flamenco dance styles were presented on the stage - tangos, farrukas, sevillanas, alegrias, tanguillo, bulerias. In addition, the performance was so magnificent not only because of the colourful costumes, a good dance technique and the emotional sensations of the dancers but also a variety of dance attributes - castanets, fans, caps.

Feeling inspired from Martins Ritins broadcast “What could be better than this?”, where you could know about original fish, today we made haddock. It is white meat fish and comes from Iceland cold and deep waters. Not cheap and fat, but very tasty.

I am a spring child and therefore, April, May seem the most beautiful months, when the earth wakes up and starts blooming. Talking about blooming - where else is the flower celebrated and respected so much as in Holland. The rapturous stories about the huge tulip plantations were really justified when I saw the sent pictures.

Yesterday, 14th of March, music and dance plasticity intertwined in an hour-long performance in the Small Hall of Daile Theatre. The concert consisted of two parts - in the first part one was able to listen to four song of the band 'Martin Confused" but in the second - watch nine dancers performing "LOVE" with the choreography of Liga Liberte. The latter was an attempt to show love in its most noble, most divine expression. In the application of the show love was not discussed as something between two people, a woman and a man, but as the love for God, for the divine within us - "Love is art... art is beauty... beauty is the true journey of the soul... journey of the soul is the truth... truth is what we believe in, belief .... I believe in love...”

This year the winter has been great. I must say that winter is not my favourite season; the coldness does not inspire me to do any physical activities. Looking at it all through a prism of optimism, Latvia is fortunate that here you can enjoy the whole four seasons in all their glory. Below, a photo gallery, which was created in a couple of walks here in Riga with a Nikon D200 in my hand.

Yesterday, e.g., last year we wandered around the city centre a few hours till New Year to enjoy the media renoned 480 thousand lats worth of decorative lighting. Beautiful!

Sevillanas is the first flamenco dance style which I started to learn in Spanish dance studio "Duende". Of course, you have to start with the most basic moves, acquire the posture, hand movements, counting of the rhythm and then the steps. The classes are organized in small groups; thus it is easy for our dance teacher Ilvija to pay attention to everyone individually, correct mistakes and follow the performance. The hour scheduled for each class passes by unnoticed. Now something more about sevillanas itself.

On Thursday, August 10, I attended the open class of the exotic dance centre Alegria which took place at the Centre of Young Technicians on E. Birznieka Upīša 4. The manager of the centre Ilze Zariņa introduced us to four types of dancing that can be learnt by the teachers of Alegria - belly dances, Indian dances, flamenco and Gypsy dances. There were performances of the teachers illustrating each of the dance types.

For the second time already the Exotic Dance Festival took place in the recreation centre of Madona, this time on August 8. The concert consisted of the achievements of modern belly dancing together with some show elements as haligi, saidi and oriental. Sharma had taken care of including Hawaiian dance style into the program. However, compared to last year, there was some sense of uniformity, a lack of Indian dances, tribal dance, Andalusian dance rhythms.

No, I am not talking about the sand sculptures that have already become popular in the Baltic States; it is something more flowing, instant and in constant motion. With just a few handfuls of sand strewn by chance on glass and with unusual finger movements a whole painting is created. It tells its own story because the contours constantly change and turn into a new form.

Shortly after Ligo night holidays, so tummy didn’t forget, how it was spoiled, my friend welcomed me in her house on cocktail evening. In attention focus was strawberry daikiri. Day, in weather prognoses tidings, was not very good – cloudy and even was delicate rain. So we drank cold daikiri and thought, that there wasn’t anything better in hot summer evening. So, hot days and evenings are here. Let’s shake some strawberry daikiri!

Just for fun I offer you to evaluate nine shades or nine types of men. Both men and women have the chance here to look at themselves more or less seriously, smile a bit but maybe think about it? ;)

Quite soon in Latvian National opera Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni" is opening night. I had a chance to be in Latvian National opera and see this operas dress rehearsal. Prevalent feeling – good prepared and originally offered performance.

I associate tango with a rather intimate interplay of bodies. Body-wise, not spiritually. A dance that can be danced on the street, on the pavement, next to a cafeteria, next to a gutter, for curious eyes, despite oneself, a partner or someone who`s watching.

"Feria de Abril" - Spring Festival that is annually celebrated in a southern province of Spain - Andalucia. This festival is especially popular in Seville, where flamenco parties last for days and everyone`s dancing sevilliana. Also the traditional bull fights and horse-trading takes place there. Spanish culture in its most popular forms - hot-blooded music, flamenco dancing, sincere discussions.

Each house, each family has their own traditions they stick to when colouring eggs for the Easter table. Maybe it is time to try some other methods? This time I will not talk about the symbolic of eggs, nor about its belonging to the celebration of the spring solstice or Christian church; I invite you to share ideas how to make this holiday more colourful and attractive.

The centre of the house, a place for conversations, meetings and celebrations. I always imagine it with a big sofa, club chairs, expressive paintings or wall decors. The living room can be combined with a library, a nice fireplace and a luxurious carpet.

This time about work-room in house or appartment where, in my oppinion, we spend the bigest part of time. In our house definetly. :) Before we start with renovation and work-room improvement before couple of years, we define for ourselfs some criterion, which could be important to us.

Syrtaki (συρτάκι) is considered an integral part of Greek symbolic and believed to be a Greek folk dance. Although this dance nowadays is willingly danced in Greece, it turns out, that there is a mistaken belief about its origins.