Guna Trukšāne
1983
Dance teacher, choreographer
Guna Trukšāne was born and raised in Jelgava, where she graduated from Jelgava’s No.2 High School in 2002. In 2009, she graduated from the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Latvian University of Agriculture with a bachelor’s degree in the External Relations of Institutions and Enterprises course.
She fell in love with dance at an early age and has made a determined effort to explore and master the creative processes in the dance sphere. She took her own first dance steps at the age of two in the Jelgava children’s dance group Ieviņa under the tutelage of its long-time leader Līga Ozola. During her teenage years, she continued to develop her dance skills in the Jelgava children’s and young people’s dance group Vēja zirdziņš (Wind Foal) under the guidance of choreographer and dance teacher Alda Skrastiņa.
In order to improve her knowledge of dance, in 2003-4 she studied in the Latvian Dance School 4 professional development programme at the Folk Art Centre state agency (now the Latvian National Centre for Culture).
From 2006, she danced in the Mazā ģilde Rīga Cultural and Folk Art Centre’s Līgo folk dance ensemble under the direction of choreographer, Dance Festival chief choreographer Jānis Purviņš. During these years, she has been the president of the dance ensemble several times, and since 2016, has been Līgo’s répétiteur. She began learning dance group leadership skills in the Jelgava municipal institution Kultūra (Culture) children’s and young people’s dance group Vēja zirdziņš, and has been its répétiteur since 2004. From 2004 to 2015, she worked actively with and led the Pali (High water) middle-generation dance group at the Lielvircava cultural centre in Platone parish. From 2015 to 2017, she was a répétiteur for the Jaunība (Youth) folk ensemble at the Jelgava municipal institution Kultūra.
In 2019, she obtained a professional higher-education diploma in Contemporary Dance, specialising in Latvian dance (qualification for dance group leaders) at the Latvian Culture College, Latvian Academy of Culture.
Since 2013, she has been chief choreographer for Bauska District dance groups, and since 2017, she has been working with the Song Celebration Society and is a member of the Dance Sector Advisory Board at the Latvian National Centre for Culture. In 2020, she created remote dance classes for school-age children within the Tava klase (Your class) educational TV programme for the Ministry of Education and Science. Since 2021, she has been a lecturer in Latvian Dance at the Latvian College of Culture, Latvian Academy of Culture.
Trukšāne acquired the skills of working with large-scale groups of dancers in 2008 as an assistant to Jānis Purviņš, a chief choreographer for the XIVth Dance Festival concert performance No sirsniņas sirsniņai (From Heart to Heart), in the Tikai mīlestībā laime (Happiness is only Found in Love) section of the production. Later, she was also the chief choreographer’s assistant for the Lec, saulīte! (Rise, sun!, 2014) dance production, for the Pavasara nakts mistērijas (Mysteries of the Spring Night, 2015) dance performance, post-folk group Iļģi 30th anniversary concert Spēlēju. Dancoju. Dejoju (I Played. I Danced. I am Dancing, 2017) and for the XVIth Dance Festival dance grand performance Māras zeme (Māra’s Land, 2018), among other large-scale dance events. In 2020/2021, she was a chief choreographer for the XIIth Latvian School Youth Song and Dance Festival.
She herself created and was chief choreographer for Jelgava’s Latvju bērni danci veda (Latvia’s Children Danced) folk-dance festival, the Jelgava District children’s dance groups’ performance Lustītēs’i vien staigāju (I Walked Joyfully, 2018). She was the artistic director for the Zemgale folk dance groups’ grand performance Lielais rits (The Great Ritual, 2017), the artistic director of the VIII International Folk Dance Festival Sudmaliņas (Mill, 2016), the artistic director of the Zemgale Days concert (2016), and choreographed the ceremony for Latvia’s highest award in professional dance (for ballet, contemporary dance, modern and stage folk dancing) Dejas balva (2019).
Each season, Trukšāne choreographs new dance performances for Jelgava’s Vēja zirdziņš. During her creative career she has created Latvian stage dances for children and young people’s dance groups as well as for adult dancers, and they have also been highly rated in a number of creative dance competitions.
During her professional career she has participated in various competitions, receiving several awards. For example, in 2013, her choreography for the dance Kur tu iesi, ciema puisi (Where are you going, village boy) won first prize in the New Dance Competition, and in 2016 and 2022, her dances Kur guļ Ziemassvētki (Where Christmas Sleeps) and Āzīti manu (Oh My Billy Goat) took first prizes at the Children’s and Young People’s New Dance Competition.
A chief choreographer for the grand dance performance Mūžīgais dzinējs (Perpetual Motion) and the latvian dance concert Balts (White) at the XXVIIth All-Latvian Song and XVIIth Dance Festival (2023).
Information sources
What does Līgo look like today? [in latvian] (2022). https://ligo.lv/lv/ligo-sodien/
XVII New Dance Competition concludes [in latvian]. http://www.egilspolis.lv/nosldziesxviijaunradesdejukonkurss
Trukšāne, Guna. (27 January 2023). Biography. [Electronic letter to the National Library of Latvia].
