The international children’s folklore festival Licider Heart will be held from 15 to 19 August in Užice, Višegrad and Zlatibor, and gather young folk dancers from 12 countries around the world, announced the organizers at a conference in Belgrade.

This year’s 16th Licider Heart will feature 1,100 children from Ecuador, Bolivia, Slovakia, Czechia, Bulgaria, China, Burundi, Tunisia, Moldova, Greece, Republic of Srpska and Serbia.

The vice-president of the festival’s organizing committee, Ivana Cvetković, said that the Licider Heart had maintained its mark of uniqueness and distinctiveness due to the festival program being held in parallel on the territory of two countries – Serbia and Republic of Srpska. Throughout the five festival days, rich cultural content awaits the participants and visitors, according to Cvetković, with folklore concerts organized at all locations, parades of folklore ensembles, folklore dance rooms, an exhibition of national costumes of the participating countries, visits to cultural and historical monuments of Serbia and the Republic of Srpska, sailing through the Drina river canyon, expert seminar Children - Tradition Guardians, and a humanitarian campaign, as all proceeds of the sale of licider hearts and souvenirs at the festival will be used to equip the children’s playroom at the surgical department of the Užice General Hospital.

On behalf of the Head of the Republic of Srpska Representative Office in Serbia, Mlađen Cicović, spoke Borislav Maksimović, Representation advisor for cooperation promotion in education, culture, art and sports, and said that the Licider Heart festival was a unique opportunity for preserving tradition and culture in addition to strengthening cooperation and friendship among young people from different parts of the world. Maksimović said that the Representation would continue to support this event, due to its contribution not only to cultural wealth, but also to establishing new connections, and added that such events were of invaluable importance for cultural heritage preservation and young generations development.

This year, the Republic of Srpska will be represented at the festival by the cultural and artistic societies Semberija from Bijeljina, Pelagić from Banja Luka and Kralj Petar Prvi Ujedinitelj from Višegrad.

The festival will open officially on Thursday, 15 August at 20:00 hrs at Trg partizana in Užice, with programs in Višegrad on Saturday, 17 August from 16:30, including, among other things, a parade of participants to be organized at 18:30 and festival concert in Andrićgrad at 19:00.

The festival will be officially closed on Monday, 19 August, in Užice.

The festival is organized by the Citizens’ Association Era from Užice and co-organized by the city of Užice, the Republic of Srpska Representation in Serbia and the municipality of Čajetina, with the support of the Serbian Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Culture.

Source and photo: Republic of Srpska Representative Office in Serbia