DAY OF THE COLUMBIANS AND THE FOOTHILL DWELLERS / MAIN CONCERT

There are no two Festivals alike. Each one brings something new. On the fourth day, we can already say - because I don't think anything will change - that this year the concerts in Nowy Sącz are begun with the foreign ensemble, and when the instruments from all the mountains of the world perform a fanfare, on stage two couples representing the comrade ensembles fall into each other’s arms. And that is beautiful, because the Poles run in on one side, the Colombians on the other, but after the hug, the Polish girl runs off with the Colombian comrade, and the Colombian girl with the Polish comrade.

Also, each evening opens with a signal to which the audience responds with a countersignal. The signal is revealed to us all, of course - as signals go - in secrecy, by concert director and co-emcee Patryk Rutkowski.

Today: LOVE!

The countersignal is a hug.

But even before that, Krzysztof Trebunia-Tutka’s horn announces... perhaps love too? After all, music is so ambiguously rich!

The emcees greet the special guests: Marta Jaworecka, the head of the Cooperative Bank in Grybów - Korzenna branch; Maria Szymańska-Ilnata, the president of the Polish Seminar of Ethnomusicology; Marcin Wąs, the mayor of Bobowa; Korzenna commune councillors; all the audience in front of their computer screens; Piotr Droździk, the Festival photographer; the highly esteemed Artistic Committee; Andrzej Zarych, the director general of SOKÓŁ Małopolska Cultural Centre; and Piotr Gąsienica, his deputy.

Although it is summer holiday, it's time to learn. The song is seemingly familiar, though not quite:

“Siskin, siskin, little bird

Have you seen, have you heard, how they reap love.

Here's how, here's how, here's how they reap love.”

 

To reap love, you must first sow it. And how do the children from the Colombian ensemble COMPAÑÍA INFANTIL ESCUELA DE DANZA FUNZA sow love?

A boy’s gestures bring sowing to mind, but after a while he evokes in our imagination an image of a rope that he is pulling, and by pulling, he is bringing onto the stage... a boat? A ship? Whatever is floating across the stage is made up of the Colombian children. And it's white, as white shine the sweeping dresses of the little Colombian girls, as well as the trousers and shirts of the little Colombian boys. They float across the stage, sowing but also reaping love, for what else is the depth of their gazes, the unity of movement, the tipping of the hats in front of the fair sex, as well as the dresses that take the shape of hearts, as the dancers spread their arms wide. And just as they started by being a ship, so they end by imitating the calm waves of the warm ocean.

A nod sowing love towards the audience, and gathering it in the form of a round of appreciative applause.

 

And how do MALI LIPNICZANIE sow and reap love? We are just about to find out. But first Krzysztof Trebunia-Tutka plays a big pipe, and sings a short story about the search for love. According to the story, love gathers in places that are not necessarily rich.

MALI LIPNICZANIE can do such magic that although it is the 25th of July all around, at the Riflemen’s Park Amphitheatre it is already the 15th of August, the Feast of Assumption, also known as the Day of Our Lady of Herbs.

“Hey, girls, let us play the mill wheel” - the little girls’ song about the flimsy mill wheel, which breaks even though it costs a lot is overpowered by the older ones’ song about the “Young lady who has stepped outside of the heavenly hall.” They walk in with ample armfuls of wild flowers. They have gathered herbs, because everything that has grown wants to be taken to church. And what has grown?

St. John’s wort, which as legend has it, grew beneath the Cross, and the blood that flowed from the Saviour's wounds endowed the yellow flowers with a drop of red. This is how it reaped Love. Mint and camomile, from the time Mary was assumed into heaven. And then there's wheat and rye... but it's already time to make the festive sheaf. The little ones, however, want to play more...

“The witch is churning butter...,” and it's already clear who the rose is that is standing in the red wreath. And she already knows very well whom she loves... And so here they are reaping love as well!

King Sobieski helps to choose the mum in the game “Geese, geese, come home.”

And somehow, the place where they reap love is where the musical band appears: a trumpet, a clarinet, two violins: the primary and the secondary one, and of course the double bass! They are sowing love and the children are reaping it with dancing, singing, ditties...

Finally, a heartfelt thank you to the musical band, and admiration for the sheaf, which, in the meantime, somehow emerged out of the blue.

 

With the sound of a trembita deeply resounding towards the heavenly glades, with the standing ovation, and with some having tears in their eyes, we reaped the love sown here by Aleksandra Szurmiak-Bogucka, a long-standing chairwoman of the Artistic Committee. This is to you, Ms Aleksandra Szurmiak-Bogucka! We extend a heartfelt thank you, and you remain in our memory!

 

And now we’re going back across the ocean!

It is no longer so white, and also less dignified, more childlike, the Colombian children float around the stage. They roll over, they hold on to one another, they pull. In general: joyful, childlike chaos that we do not need to understand, just feel.

And suddenly this apparent disorder - thanks to the ropes held in the dancers’ hands, interwoven in a fancy way - becomes a web connecting all the performers into one. And so the world seems ordered again, as it no longer stands chaotic, but arranged in circles, with everyone together all around, until comes... the night? And after the night comes awakening, and along with it a joyful exit from the stage.

The musical band offers us, with its male voices, a little singing respite between the children's performances. In the meantime, they have managed to get changed, and now they are dancing to the strains of another song and then the next one, as if with a waft of skirts, hats and blood-red scarves, they wished to enchant our memory and stay in it as long as possible. And then there's the dance-game “ready for the photo.” All at a frenetic and probably very tiring pace, if it weren't for those moments when you need to stop to be “ready for the photo.”

And on Friday? The last national day, and the concert of all the musical bands in the SOKÓŁ courtyard! You can’t miss these events!