National Ensemble of Croatia LADO

LADO, the state ensemble of Croatian folk songs and dances, is the Croatian professional folklore ensemble established in 1949 for the research, collection, artistic interpretation and stage performance of the most traditional works of Croatia’s rich heritage of folk songs and dances.

LADO has assembled the talents of the most famous Croatian folklorists and choreographers, folk musicians, composers and conductors who are inspired by folk music. LADO’s imposing repertoire, both choreographically and musically, is respected throughout the world for its authenticity. The repertoire contains more than one hundred choreographies and hundreds of vocal and instrumental works. Remarkably, the ensemble of dancers is equally at home as an award-winning folk choir that performs both traditional regional folk songs and sacred folk masses. Year 2002 Ensemble LADO was representing Europe on the 6th World Symposium on Choral Music (Minnesota, August 03-10) as one of the 22 world's best choirs. LADO was also awarded the prestigious “Golden Doruntina 2000” for its vocal and choreographic excellence. The fifteen versatile musicians play an extraordinary range of musical selections on a wide variety of more than 40 traditional folk instruments.

LADO boasts a unique collection of hundreds of authentic folk costumes of extraordinary value and beauty, so that each performance of LADO is also a museum-like display of traditional Croatian folk costumes.

Each season, LADO offers three different dance programs with 10-12 choreographies and three vocal and instrumental secular and sacred traditional folk music programs.

The LADO ensemble has performed in numerous musical and video recordings, and in a wide variety of both Croatian and foreign television programs, documentary and feature films, and theatrical productions.

LADO’s stage performances throughout the world have earned standing ovations from its enthusiastic audiences and dance critics have ranked LADO as one of the finest and most authentic folk dance companies in the world.