Not long ago we talked about Polish folk art. Let’s continue our journey through the colourful world of Polish folklore - this time, let’s talk about traditional dances. Folk dances are fascinating because they unite several cultural elements – music, poetry and traditional costumes. While you may see Poland as a very homogenous country, the dances clearly demonstrate the differences between the regions. While the choreographies mostly involved many couples, the sequences and costumes are very different. Let’s have a look at the most common Polish folk dances! To give you a better idea of what these dances look like I included videos demonstrating them.
Krakowiak
The name immediately suggests where this dance originated. Its basic choreography involves several couples. One of the male dancers sings and indicates the steps for the others, the couples then dance in a circle and alternate. Just like most other dances, Krakowiak is very loud and dynamic. One of the distinctive features of this dance are the costumes, considered to be the national Polish costumes - I’m sure you’ve seen it more than once!
Kujawiak
Another dance whose name indicates its place of origin - the Kujawy region. This dance developed from traditional wedding dances and is significantly slower than the other ones. It’s characterized by its slow walking and swaying, first the partners slowly walk towards each other to form couples and then dance in circle. What makes this dance truly special is the fact that it leaves a lot of room for improvisation and the dancers may add their own arm and leg movements - this makes each performance of Kujawiak different!
Oberek
This is the fastest of the traditional Polish dances. Its name comes from the word obracać się which means “to spin around”. The distinguishing feature of this dance is that the music meter may change several times during the performance but the meter of the singing and the steps remains the same. As you can imagine, this may give this dance a slightly chaotic appearance but you will see that it only contributes to its unique character.
Mazur
Mazur or Mazurek, in English known as Mazurka - it is both the name of the dance as well as the music that accompanies it (we also have a traditional cake named like that!). Despite the name, it doesn’t originate from Mazury (Masuria) but likely was invented in Central Poland. This dance was developed from the previously mentioned Krakowiak, Kujawiak and Oberek. Mazurek melodies are notoriously difficult to play - no wonder why composers such as Fryderyk Chopin liked so much to experiment with this form! Also in this dance the couples dance in a circle but at times they change the direction in which they are spinning and oftentimes their movements aren’t synchronised because they are improvised by the dancers.
Polonez