Youth dance festival "Moving Minds" held in Palsmane
Forty-five young dancers gathered for three days in Palsmane, in Smiltene municipality, to create a performance inspired by contemporary dance, hip-hop and house styles. Organizers hope to grow the event into an international festival.
From August 20 to 23, the town of Palsmane in Vidzeme hosted "Moving Minds", a new youth dance festival held for the first time in the region's cultural calendar. Over three days, 45 young dancers, along with their families and local residents, came together to jointly create a performance blending contemporary dance, hip-hop and house styles.
From experience to performance
At the festival's close, participants presented a roughly 30-minute performance in which each dancer could freely explore different styles and develop their own movement language. Audiences were struck by how polished the production felt given it was created in just three days. Organizers stress, however, that the festival's value went beyond the final show — over the three days, young participants gained confidence to experiment, learned new skills and formed new friendships. Participants themselves described a warm, welcoming atmosphere and highlighted the new friends and dance styles they discovered.
Plans for the future
Organizer Ilze Zīriņa, from Rauna, said this year's event was a first step toward building a larger, possibly international, youth dance festival in the future. She noted that dance offers young people more than technical skills alone: it teaches them about the origins and meaning of different dance genres, creates opportunities for new relationships, and strengthens the local community, which contributed accommodation, catering and other support. Organizers gave particular thanks to the catering staff of Palsmane Primary School for their tasty food and welcoming attitude toward participants.
The festival was organized by the association "Vitamīns K[kustība]" together with "Divided" and "Red Created". It received financial support from the Vidzeme Planning Region's "Vidzeme Culture Programme 2026", the State Culture Capital Foundation, Smiltene municipality, and participants' parents.
