An invitation to Bogota!?

I can't believe that!! One day, when we were waiting for a class, Gosia, my best classmate, said me that she had listened our trainer with his deputy, Martyna, talking about the next holidays' plans for the group. And she related that they had mentioned a folk festival in... Bogota, Colombia!!

Ok, I should explain my euphoria first. It's easy - I love Colombia for years, I visited this country, not Bogota but its Carribean region and I felt in love in it! I didn't came back yet, but, how you can suppose, it's my dream, I try to save money for that. And, although I'm in Poland, I read and write about this lovely place (just have a look at the right of my blog - there are two other blogs, in Polish, I dedicate to Colombia), I know its culture, learn Colombian dialect, listen Colombian music... Yea, that's the point - music, instruments and dance of Colombia and my motherland are things I would like to connect!

There were a moment when I knew more about Colombian music that about Polish. Quite sad, don't you think so? But actually, when I was saying to my friends from the university that I started my folk experience, I realized that many people don't have any reference of Polish folk. That folk dance for them is something strange, rare, it arouses laugh.

In Colombia, instead, the folk dance is something deep-rooted. The Colombian people are proud of their mixed Spanish, Indian and African legacy. Let me know you the most important Colombian music genres and dances.

We will start with the most famous one, cumbia, from the Carribean.

In general, the music tradition from the Northern regions is more common, recognizable in the hole country. It's also the case of vallenato, a genre based on the sound of accordion. In this case there is no traditional dance, but only a few steps which do this music able to dance.

One of the genre more influenced by the African rythms is mapalé, from the Carribean region too.

In the region of the Andes the most particular one can be bambuco (yes, it's the same word that in Polish expression "zrobić kogoś w bambuko").

And my latest discovery, joropo, traditional dance from the region of llanos, it means, Colombian cowboys' land. Every time I see this people dance I am on the watch! The velocity of theirs movements... Wow! Extremly good and difficult too! Have a look:

I really hope you enjoyed and known something new. It could be one of the most beatiful moments in my life if I go with the gropus to the festival to Bogota and present my own culture in the country I love so much. The question is: will the trainer accept the invitation or not?

Don't suffocate, please

The title is a request of Marta, one of my friend from the dance class. Yes, I remember it very well... We were excercising the oberek in pairs. There are no enough boys, so many times the girls dance with other girls. During a lot of classes I didn't feel firmly in this dance and for this reason I tried to concentrate on do good the steps. I was so concentrated that I didn't realize I was clasping the neck of my friend and that she was feeling a little of pain...

Then I undestrood: the dance is not only the steps... In my own experience I know that it's a pleasure to see a dance show, but only if the people who is performing express their emotions. You can see them in their facial expression, gesture and also in if they sing. What I am doing is to prepare me to an art performance where I will have a role, a costume... Maybe that's why I was treating it so seriously?

Lately my attitude changed. Right now I'm quite laid-back, I don't scare to ask if I don't know something, I don't worry so much when I make a mistake, turn in other side I should or loose one or more class, and even I help to learn the steps to two new girls who joined the group recently. I took it easy. Undoubtedly, it's a change I note in me. And it's a positive change :)

How to turn and don't feel nausea

At the beginning I had problems with the turns, and there are a lot of turns in the polish folk dance, belive me. You can rotate around yourself or doing other steps with your partner. In general, it looks very effectively, but the work that you should put in practice the turns is huge! 

The first and basic rule of the turns is to come back with your eyesight to the same point you were looking. Otherwise, I'm sure you'll feel nausea and don't stand still in one place. It's important to never lose sight of one element of the scenery we chose to follow. The movement of the head have to be really fast. OK, that's the case of turns without your partner. But if you dance with somebody, it's necessary to look at him/her and wide smile :) 

At the moment we learned to turn the basic step of oberek, the turns similar like in the ballet and other one called okroczak. We do it with the heels on the floor and with the knees bended. And, of course - you mustn't forgive about the hands collocated pertly in the waist. I like it, altought it doesn't seems so subtle like a ballet turn which we do on the fingers.

And the last one I want you to know is the drobna kaszka turn. The dancers cross the hands and hold their hands. Then they start to turn together in one direction and next, in the other. It remembers a mill and the action of mill something with an instrument invisible between the dancers. The shape of their bodies should look like a glass of wine - the legs together and near and the sholders far.

I think that turn on a slant of the gymnasium is the worst exercise we do. I never finish it because of nausea :D I need many classes more to achieve success in this area :)

Sick conscientiousness?

Me, telling me off and philosophizing

Today is the first time I didn't go to the dance class. Maybe it is not an horrible crime, altought I'm feeling guilty. Can you understand it? Because me, not.

I think it's pretty delicate subject for me. I consider myself too conscientious person. Many times I don't let me take it easy, relax and much less to be lazy. I fell always responsable of everything. In the case of today's class, there weren't any obstacle to go. I didn't have urgent homework or other activity to do in this time. So the problem consist in that I don't know which was the reason of my decision. I fear to say that it was... laziness.

Actually, it was strange. When the class at the university finished, I had more or less one hour and a half. Like I didn't have it clear, I was just strolling into the tram station and asking me: which direction I will choose?

Concluding, I need to rezognize that when I got home, I regreted I hadn't choosed enjoy the dance class... However, I would like to defend me, explain the fact that occured. I have the right to loose so many classes as I want. I shouldn't categorize my election like a weakness, I think. There is no justification, that's truth, but it doesn't mean that I must give it every time I want to do this or other thing! 

Oh, so philosophical and psycological this post! Yes, but it forms part of my folk adventure. At the moment the unique negative consecuense of stay at home today will be perhaps unawareness of new steps, if they learn them, of course (not always we learn new things; sometimes we just repeat and improve what we know already). I sincerly hope the next time I won't doubt about go or don't go. Because, after all, the aim is TO ENJOY :)

There is a new muscle on my thigh!

One of the most difficult parts of my dance class is the warm-up. Maybe it sounds ridiculous, but it is not. The reason? Our warm-up are ballet steps and positions! I was surprised that we look about it, but it turned out that ballet is the base of everything we learn and will learn of folk dance. So let me introduce you a few details of what I practise every Tuesday and Thursday.

First of all, there are five basic positions which allow to do the basic steps.

 

We almost stand in the third position, but the other four are very important. The fifth make me wobble always! It requires that the legs be very streched, that's obvious, and the mines it is not.

Now, we can pass to know the essential terms. The steps or techniques I knew are: demi plié, grand plié, jèté, frappé, grand battement, relèvé, sauté, passé, battement tendu, battement jèté, rond de jambe par terre and changement. It's possible that I forgot some names, but I should confess that until now I won't able to remember this french nomenclature! I just need to absorb it like a vocabulary to the French class. The truth is that I know French, but I have the right to not understand it when somebody say french words with polish accent, right? Fortunately, in the Internet there are a lot of videos. They help me associate what we do in the class with the terms as such. Have a look of one of them:

Thanks to the steps with "plié" which mean "to bend" (standing leg or legs) I really sculpted my thighs! I discovered I have other muscle I didn't feel before and it's the vastus lateralis muscle. I just hope that in one year I will fit in the same size of jeans! :D

I'm a horrible neighbour

Do you remember the poem "Paweł i Gaweł" of Aleksander Fredro? Ok, there are two men whose lifestyles diverge. The unique thing they have in common is that they're really bad neighbours. Ather an unpleasant situation that had place last week I can identify with this story...

So the mentioned last week I knew a new step of krakowiak - krzesany. Already its name says a lot: it's very energetic and pert step, you need to put all the power you have in hit the floor with your heel. At the same moment you go down with the other leg. When the leg that hit the floor come back, both straighten up in the knee. Let's have a look (it starts at 40 seconds):

Now, you can imagine me, dancing it in my flat at 10 p.m. (it's the hour when I'm usually back home after the dance class). Oh, of course, it's necessary to add that I live in the fourth floor... I had never meet my neighbour below, but I hear him often. He cough and talk too loudly... So maybe I thought he doesn't care about the noise. I went wrong... That day I only heard swearwords. Ups!

Yes, it's true, I behaved scandalous. But since then I know the place to practice the steps is neither the road nor the flat. It's exclusively the gymnasium ;)

Landing in the puddle

That's incredible how the time runs fast! Ten days ago, on 14 October, I went for the first time to the rehearsal of the group of begginers. I remember I was quite nervous and uncertain. I wasn't sure, for exemple, if my clothes were appropiate (I mean, just my gym suit, not a special costume or something like that). The strees (although it was unjustified) usually makes us doubt about ourselves, our possibilities. So I struggle with myself, but I win one battle after another!

When the first class finished, there weren't a person happier than me in the group. I couldn't stop smiling and talking with my new friends about our impressions. I was excited about basic steps of krakowiak and oberek we just learned.

Today I'd like to discribe you the first one, calls hołubiec. It consists of jump and hit one foot with the other, but not at the place you're standing on. The jump must be to the right or to the left. The point of heaviness is the leg which only jump. The other leg gives the direction and it's this one which hit when it comes back to the straight position of your body. Do I make myself understood? Maybe it will be easier to show it on a video. So there you are, a short movie of the annual event Wytnij Hołubca whereby the folk groups teach people around the city to dance this step.

Ok, and what about the puddle and landing in it? That's just a consequence of excercise hołubiec also outside the gymnasium. One day I was coming back with my sister from the town centre and in the road very close to my house, where there weren't nobody, I decided to show her what I had learned. I don't know how I did it, but the first attempt did me land in the puddle in the middle of the road. And that's the first anecdote I can relate about my folk adventure :) Oh, I almost forget to thank my sister for help me get up, clean my clothes, bag and hair and disinfect my little wound... :) I love you very much, Misia!

Why folk?

Hello everybody! My name is Magda. I study Spanish Philology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. This blog is a type of homework for my English classes, but not only. I really like write and I also have other blogs, in Polish and Spanish. So I just treat it like a pleasure! Of course, it always requires time and concentration, but we have to demand of ourselves even if other people didn't demand of us, like John Paul II said. For me the difficulty will be the language. I didn't have contact with English for three years, so you can suppose the number of errors that will appear here... I really apologize for that and I ask you to correct me!

Now the question is: WHY FOLK? At the blog of my English teacher, there is an invitation to undertake something in the new academic year. I very admire all the people who take care of preserve and show the folklore of their country. That's the reason of why I have always dreaming about be a folk dancer. Finally, after three years of doubt, I made a decision of join Zespół Tańca Ludowego "Poznań" and since 14 October I attend the meetings of the group. I learn steps, meet people and, maybe the most important thing, I overcome my fright. I would like to share with you my observations. It will be something extremely different that I know: not a part of Spanish or Latin America's culture that I'm learing about, but roots of my slavic nation. I hope you enjoy this challenge with me!