DAY OF THE MACEDONIANS AND THE OLD WITCHES’ MOUNTAIN HIGHLANDERS / MAIN CONCERT

Poland - from the foot of the Old Witches’ Mountain, and North Macedonia - from  town of Štip - fall into each other's arms to the joyful whirr of the pinwheels.

Today, GOODNESS, a gift that everyone has within themselves. Let us shake each other’s hands.

Dariusz Gawęda, the deputy director of the Department of Culture and Heritage at the Governor's Office of the Małopolska Province, and his wife; Józef Bałos, the starost of the Sucha Beskidzka County; Michał Surmiak, the mayor of the Maków Podhalański commune; as well as the councillors representing that commune: Kazimierz Bałos and Dorota Kaczmarczyk; and Rev. Tadeusz Bogdanik, the Juszczyn parish priest.

From North Macedonia, a group of twelve children come dancing towards us, with a tranquil and kneeling step, but only for a moment. Because they are already moving faster. Four boys in the middle, and around them, in a crescent and as if amazed - eight girls. In fours, in pairs... slower, and again faster ... This is how the ANSAMBL TOSKA - DETSKO STUDIO team sows smiles.

Today, a siskin, a tiny bird, is asked if it has seen them sowing smiles. It has.

We applaud the sponsors.

The ensemble from Juszczyn come in on the cue of the bell sound. Not surprisingly. That is, after all, what they are called: ZBYRCOCEK - or a shepherd's bell - is hung around sheep’s necks so that they are easy to find.

Our attention is focused on the armful of wild flowers carried by a girl. It points to a group of shepherdesses sitting on the stage, making just such bunches. And everyone knows that work goes much more smoothly when it is accompanied by singing. And another group is playing with rag dolls and handkerchiefs. The play is extremely absorbing, since even an old bear cannot tear them away from it.

How come we have known for so many years that you should never wake a bear, and yet, when three o'clock strikes, the rising cry nevertheless wakes it up.

The boys won’t play “Ulijanka”; they are sitting close by, proving that in the olden days to have fun one only needed a couple of ordinary stones found on the road.

Music is brought by a button accordion player. That is, he brings a button accordion, just like that from the heart, so they can dance. And sing.

A beautifully composed picture: in the middle, a group of children from the environs of the Old Witches’ Mountain dance, after a while they stop to sing, and then they dance again. And this group is “flanked” on one side by the girls sitting on the ground and arranging bouquets, and on the other side by the boys who are the smallest in the group.

The button accordion player can’t stay any longer, but the they still want to play. So the girls take turns in the blindfold role, playing the blind man's buff, and the boys go about their business again. They are also not very interested in playing “the little fox.”

The string trio will stop “just for a short while,” so that almost everyone can dance and sing to the sounds of ‘cięta polka’ again. As if with a Czech magic feather, the primary and the secondary violins as well as the little double bass are creating dance on stage. Maybe every musical band at the FESTIVAL OF THE CHILDREN OF MOUNTAINS has such a feather, such a power that they use to conjure up movement with sound. Not just any kind of movement, but movement that is equal, joyful, shared. Now they are playing faster - the dance is filling the stage more swiftly, and now again more slowly... - the dancers stride swingingly, singing more quietly. That is quite some magic!

A children's ensemble on stage, so ciupaga axes have been replaced by sticks, which in no way detracts from the young highlanders' skills. Dancing around in circles, hitting stick against stick, stepping in a hard, manly manner, and after a while, that typical highlander's acrobatics.

And so they end up running off in a hurry, because they have remembered that they are here not to dance, but to attend to the grazing animals.

First of all, Krzysztof Trebunia-Tutka invites us to the “Old Witches’ Mountain Autumn Festival,” so that we can witness the customary annual herding of the sheep, see for ourselves that the culture of grazing under the great mountain has not died out, and then he reminds us with the sound of the fiddle that in one hour's time, the SOKÓŁ courtyard will host “World Music,” i.e. a concert of the musical bands which have come to Nowy Sącz this year.

The last evening ends with the Macedonian vodarka. First the girls alone, then the boys join in. The yellow headscarves transport us in our minds to the sun-marked land in southern Europe. Such is the Balkan smile to conclude the national days of the 31st FESTIVAL OF THE CHILDREN OF MOUNTAINS.