polonaise

I was supposed to post this message one month ago but I guess I had other stuff to write about. It’s never too late though so enjoy reading and watching :)

It all started last week when me and my guest from Poland (beloved Ludwisia) did a "Polish night" for my flat mates here in Morocco. We prepared some "Polish" food (I'm using "" because our cooking skills were not very sophisticated and we just did some food that not necessarily is Polish but who cares! - people liked it :) ).

We also decided to show them one of traditional Polish dances called polonez (the name comes from French word “polonaise” which means Polish). I guess it just reminded me about studniowka that took place in the city of Elblag (where my high school is) in January 2003 (“studniowka” is an official party for high school graduates taking place 100 days before final exams; the word studniowka comes from Polish words for "100" and "day"). For me the party was amazing because of performing this dance itself. Normally, in every school each student and teacher dances it together which makes hundreds of people dancing at the same time – believe me! That looks fabulous! However, in my school there was more. Before the dance of everyone, there was an incredible performance of 12 couples (including me:) Our performance was much more fancy and complicated that the one that we did together with the rest of our school mates. We wore amazing outfits borrowed from the theater in Gdansk – guys had military costumes from beginning of XIX century (from the time when Poland was fighting along with France (ruled by Bonaparte) against whole Europe). Girls had white dresses similar to wedding ones. We danced in a huge hall with foyer around. They could see us from the 1st or 2nd floor. The only one disadvantage of being involved in dancing was that one couldn’t see this beautiful view from the top – I was just later told that it was really gorgeous!

I’ll never forget the strong lights directed on our side along with people’s looks, loud but graceful music and all the powerful atmosphere – it was an enlightening experience ;)

But let’s travel back to 2007. As you can see the Polish night has woken up some old memories in me. Yesterday, I was sitting in my office and listening to polonez music again… I also downloaded the movie with the most famous polonez (Pan Tadeusz), showed some parts of it to my flat mates and was happy to see how much they were amazed.

The firt one just below is the original one from the movie.



Others at the end of the post show the dance performed at "studniowka" balls. They are some random videos found on youtube.

Watch it and enjoy it!

Happy to share some part of Polish culture ;)