The Baltic Song and Dance celebration were inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008. Since 1924, every four
or five years this cultural phenomenon culminates in a grand national song and dance celebration that is held over a week and assembles up to 40,000 singers and dancers dressed in traditional costumes, craftsmen, Visual artists and more than 300,000 spectators from ail aver Lithuania and abroad. Held aver several summer days,
open-air dances, songs and music unite various generations, social groups, strengthen sens of cultural identity. During the Celebration, representatives from different cultural regions and Lithuanian emigrants’ communities showcase their singing and dancing performances.
In 2024 Lithuania will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first Dainu sventé (Lithuanian Song and Dance Celebration) held in Kaunas in 1924. The festivities will be organized across multiple venues (concert halls, stadiums, city squares and parks) in Vilnius and Kaunas, the largest cities of Lithuania.

In November 2015, the Lithuanian National Commission for UNESCO, in close partnership with the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, the Lithuanian Folk Culture Centre and the Netherlands Embassy in Vilnius, organized a capacity-building seminar on the implementation of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage at the national and international levels. Mr. Rieks Smeets, an expert on ICH, acted as a facilitator and lecturer during the seminar. The seminar focused on the key concepts of the Convention, the roles of different stakeholders, recommendations on establishing national policies, legislation, institutional infrastructure, terminological issues, inventorying methods and examples and systems.
In addition to the Operational Directives, the Lithuanian National Commission for UNESCO is also going to publish the collection of articles on UNESCO’s main action lines. The publication is dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Lithuania’s membership in UNESCO.
The series of publications of the Conventions (1972, 2003, 2005) of the cultural field, the Operational Guidelines and the Operational Directives have all been translated into Lithuanian and will be published and disseminated to all relevant stakeholders and NGOs.