Day of the costa ricans and the gorce highlanders / main concert

The shimmering instruments played by the Costa Rican band: the trumpets, the trombone and the saxophones break the gentle darkness of the stage. The orchestra performs a fanfare! The Costa Rican children and the Zasadne children fall into each other’s arms.

It is not easy to persuade a musician to lend his instrument; all the more credit to Krzysztof Trebunia-Tutka for allowing his trembita to be used by one of the Costa Rican musicians to open today's concert.

Patryk Rutkowski appears on stage and introduces the guests present today: Mirosław Haczek, the head of the Community Centre for Culture, Sports and Recreation in Kamienica; Elżbieta Citak, a Councillor of the Kamienica Commune, and the Head of the Education and Tradition Section at the Community Centre for Culture, Sports and Recreation in Kamienica; Agata Zięba, the leader of the village of Zasadne; Jan Łosakiewicz, the President of the Polish Section of CIOFF; and Leszek Chołuj, the Treasurer of the Polish Section of CIOFF. 

Today, Director Andrzej Zarych watched over an important event - a performance by two ensembles in the Province Capital, and as the Tuesday concert begins, he is returning from Cracow. Filling in for him, ex-officio, but also ex-heart, is Piotr Gąsienica, the deputy Festival Director, and the organisational manager of the FESTIVAL OF THE CHILDREN OF MOUNTAINS.

Patryk Rutkowski, director of this year's concerts, scatters around smiles. The Costa Rican musical band catch a smile from Patryk in their instruments, responding with a vibrating sound, and the audience do not remain unresponsive; in exchange for the smile caught in their outstretched, open hands, they respond with a shout and... of course a smile.

The first moment that the Costa Rican children sow consists of music led by the flute, almost from the first notes it is accompanied by the most perfect instrument: the singer's voice, but the most important thing is what the Costa Rican girls send to us from the stage, through the agency of movement, a wave of pastel skirts, coming closer to us, a gesture, dancing off to the sides and then back together again, a gentle step, lifting of the hand...

The next moment flows faster. I know, I know, time is always the same... but not quite after all. If the notes flow faster, we also feel the moments try to keep up with them and somehow speed up strangely. So the girls dance faster, which is not insignificant, because the brisker it gets, the more challenging it becomes; since on their heads the girls carry vessels, resembling clay pots. They are not tied down; they sometimes need to be adjusted and... finally taken off. With the pot on your head, it's impossible to take a bow.

The third moment belongs to the boys. Three of them appear on stage. They spread the moment with hats and scarves. But almost immediately (what can “immediately” mean in the face of such moments?) the girls join in, with multi-coloured, glittering skirts like winds. To compare them to butterflies seems trivial, but unfortunately, or fortunately, it is also apt.

The concert director encourages everybody to scatter smiles around, and to take in the Festival lamb available at the Festival shop, and to have fun with the Festival pinwheel. A smile, a lamb, a pinwheel - a full complement of the symbols of the FESTIVAL OF THE CHILDREN OF MOUNTAINS.

Krzysztof explains why the ZASADNIOKI children are in linen costumes, dressed so modestly... After all, on an ordinary day they did not use to play in the glade near the wayside shrine in folk, festive costumes.

The place behind the pasture is no longer haunted, since the grandfather has put up a statue of the Virgin Mary. And now that is a good place to play. You can play the ‘little fox’ game. The little crippled fox (with “no arm or leg”) is chosen fairly, i.e. as usual by way of a counting-out rhyme; and the next foxes are chosen by the previous little foxes by attaching the bushy tail to them. The little fox transforms mysteriously into the game of ‘Ulijanka.’ And the game of ‘Ulijanka’ into ‘konopki.’ Another game is “mało nos, mało nos...”; and so more and more children are called in, and those waiting to be invited, play with rag dolls and a rag ball.

Are you sure it's not haunted here any more? If not, then who is throwing the cones and what is this creepy straw figure doing here? Fear makes the girls kneel in front of the shrine and, like the characters in Adam Mickiewicz's “Daddy's Return”, they pray. In the Romantic bard’s ballad the reason was similar. The kids in the ballad feared too, for their dad, for his safe return home.

Luckily, the scary thing turned out to be some mischievous boys. And now they are about to play ‘twelve sticks.’ Earlier - hide-and-seek ... the one seeking is the one who counts all the sticks thrown by the hiding ones. And if he goes where there is no one, the sticks fall onto the stage again and he has to count them again.

“A hell of a racket you are making here!” Among the older ones just entering the stage appears Jasiek. And Jasiek is carrying a violin which has just been repaired. So you can expect him to play a polka. First for one dancing couple. Then for everyone. And as you know, musical instruments attract one another with amazing power. Almost like the planets of the solar system. When a fiddle is playing, other fiddles and a bass hear it, and before you know it there is already a small three-piece band inviting you to dance. And to sing. And now, like the pages in THE FESTIVAL OF THE CHILDREN OF MOUNTAINS brochure browsing forward, dances and ditties are changing on stage; with someone whistling now and then, someone else stamping. And all is happening under the watchful eye of the Divine Mother, watching over them from the shrine. And that is where this fun time ends with the setting sun. And it all ends with a sung prayer, expressing the hope that the sleeping heart will also love Mary above all things.


With warm words, Patryk Rutkowski greets Michalina Wojtas, an educator of many instructors.


The name of the ensemble (SUENOS Y SEMILLAS) from Costa Rica can be rendered as 'dreams and seeds,' so the association with sowing seeds is spot-on!

And this is the fourth moment of sowing by the COMPAÑÍA FOLCLÓRICA SUEÑOS Y SEMILLAS ensemble. And it is so funny when the two girls in the dance bicker and reconcile, and do a little to spite each other before finally ending with a heartfelt hug.

In Costa Rica, it is a special custom to fly kites. And this final moment breathes with the wind lifting the delicate structures. First, the girls seem to be floating above the stage in multicoloured pleats, so that after a while we can see a group of children dance with authentic kites. As if they themselves were a breeze...

And finally, a sign of extraordinary togetherness and unity: all the little kites become one big kite. As in the dance itself, the children from Costa Rica become one. And not just from Costa Rica... 

Because the dance we see every year on the FESTIVAL OF THE CHILDREN OF MOUNTAINS stages is a metaphor for love, peace and, exactly, togetherness. Let us remind ourselves of this by watching the comrade dances on Saturday night during the final concert.

The next day is announced by Patryk Rutkowski with words, and Krzysztof Trebunia-Tutka with notes of the zbójnicki music played on his grandfather's bagpipes.

Tomorrow ..

But we will not say what will happen tomorrow. Whoever has attended the concert today, knows. Anyone who hasn't, make sure you come along tomorrow.