Once banned by rulers dispatched from Moscow, Poland\u2019s stately polonaise dance that nurtured the country\u2019s spirit even through the dark years of its partition is now honoured by UNESCO. This 18th-century dance has been performed from aristocratic balls to village celebrations, inspiring composers the likes of J S Bach and Frederic Chopin. It still figures prominently in big national occasions, pre-graduation balls and weddings.<\/p>\n
On December 5, this living tradition was ensconced into the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage as a \u201cform of joint celebration,\u201d which \u201ccommemorates important moments in family and community life and symbolizes cooperation, reconciliation and equality.\u201d Poland\u2019s Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, which petitioned for the dance\u2019s inclusion into UNESCO\u2019s list, said its initiative was met with huge public support.<\/p>\n
\u201cThousands of people on Facebook and other social media were supporting the (UNESCO) entry,\u201d Joanna Cicha-Kuczynska of the ministry\u2019s Department of Monuments Protection, told The Associated Press. She said there is a huge community, including entire families, that dance the polonaise and pass the tradition on. Performed in pairs, it is led by the first and most prominent pair which improvises various figures, such as raising joined hands to form bridges under which other dancers can pass.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most important in the polonaise is that the whole group can jointly dance the choreography, and among the personal features the most important are the dignity of the men and the ethereal nature of the women,\u201d said Marcin Pracki, a dancer of the Warsaw University\u2019s Dance Theatre \u201cWarszawianka.\u201d Another \u201cWarszawianka\u201d dancer, Monika Fiugajska, said the dance\u2019s simplicity is its strength.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a very simple dance, the simplest among our national dances but at the same time it has an exceptional soul and one can express emotions in it in an exceptional way,\u201d Fiugajska said. This slow-paced procession dance evolved from a folk form called the \u201cwalking dance.\u201d By the 18th century, under the French name of \u201cPolonaise\u201d \u2013 or Polish \u2013 it was widely danced among European nobility and opened royal balls.<\/p>\n
In his 1773 book \u201cThe Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands and United Provinces,\u201d British musician Charles Burney described the polonaise as being very popular across Saxony and especially at the court in Dresden where Poland\u2019s elected king Augustus II The Strong had introduced it decades earlier. Having inspired some of the greatest classical composers including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Pyotr Tchaikovsky, the polonaise remains timeless, still opening the Vienna Opera Ball in carnival season.<\/p>\n
\u201cUndoubtedly, the polonaise merits being on the UNESCO list of world heritage because it is a dance with not only Polish but an international tradition, it is a generally recognised ballroom dance,\u201d said Szymon Paczkowski, a musicology professor at the University of Warsaw. Paczkowski said you don\u2019t need to be a good dancer to participate \u2013 a slightly bent one knee at the right beat suffices.<\/p>\n
During Poland\u2019s more than a century of partition by neighbouring Russia, Prussia and Austria, the polonaise expressed longing for the lost homeland, especially among the exiles and emigrees such as Chopin, who had emigrated to Paris. It was banned on territories that Russia took over. The polonaise has become the opening dance at high school pre-graduation balls. Poland\u2019s post-World War II communist authorities banned it from schools \u2013 because of its aristocratic and patriotic connotations \u2013 but students revived the tradition by the late 1960s.<\/p>\n
Gabrysia Kosmal, 19, was among the students at Warsaw\u2019s Mikolaj Rej high school who performed the polonaise this month. \u201cIt is an exceptional moment, because you know, there happen to be conflicts among classmates, not everyone gets along with everyone, but we immerse in the music, dance together, it is a magical moment,\u201d Kosmal said. The polonaise is also a staple during national anniversaries, including the November 11 Independence Day celebrations, when people are invited to dance in the streets with officials.<\/p>\n
Natalia Bernat, an 18-year-old student who took part in a massive street dance in the central city of Lodz last month, said the polonaise brings people together at a time when the community needs it most and she believes \u201cit\u2019s worth it to cultivate this tradition.\u201d The leader of the Lodz street dance, Janusz Wielgosz, who donned a historic outfit for the occasion, said the polonaise is about beauty. \u201cIt is a dance that is really very simple, with beautiful music and beautiful costumes. It is worth a try.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Once banned by rulers dispatched from Moscow, Poland\u2019s stately polonaise dance that nurtured the country\u2019s spirit even through the dark\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":31291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[10212,4625,10215,723,10211,10214,10210,10213],"class_list":["post-31290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-banned-by-communists","tag-cooperation","tag-equality","tag-poland","tag-polonaise-dance","tag-reconciliation","tag-unesco","tag-unesco-list-of-intangible-cultural-heritage"],"reading_time":"4 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}