Concerts

Apart from the regular annual full-length concerts with new programs, the Ensemble has made numerous regular appearances,

Sredni Polonez at Swieta Sportowe in 1995.

to name a few, The Technical and Professional Club Balls, The Maryborough Golden Wattle Festival, St Vincent de Paul's and Red Cross International Charity concerts, Senior Citizen's Week concerts at the Melbourne Concert Hall, Rotary Club concerts, St Kilda and Emerald Hill Festivals, the Austrian Club-Heidelberg, the Swieta Sportowe and the Polish Commemorative Akademias, 3ci Maj, 11-go Listopada, ect.

Polonez has travelled interstate extensively, for numerous concerts, to Sydney, Newcastle, Canberra, Hobart and Adelaide, and also visited the Victorian regional centres of Albury, Mildura, Wangaratta, Camperdown, Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo.

REPERTOIRE

Polonez has a huge repertoire of songs and dances, and a large wardrobe of costumes. Dorotki have prepared and sung over one hundred songs. The Ensemble has performed all Polish national dances, and pioneered the way as the first Ensemble in Australia to go beyond national dances and present regional folk songs and dances, the first being the famous Rzeszowskie suita, by Marian Maj. It has choreographic arrangements of Rzeszowskie, Kurpiowskie, Lowickie, Opoczynskie, Lubelskie, Zywieckie, Slaskie, Goralskie, Kujawskie, Wielkopolskie, Staro Warszawskie, Lwowskie, Nowo Sadeckie, Kieleckie, Huculskie and Beskidskie dances.

From humble origins, the costumes that the Ensemble owns now are quite considerable. At least 16 sets of Krakowskie, Kujawskie, Szlacheckie, Lowickie, Opoczynskie, Rzeszowskie, Podlaskie, Slaskie, Szamotulskie, Staro Warszawskie, Kieleckie, Huculskie, Lubelskie, Zywieckie (mieszczanskie), Goraskie (Zakopianskie I Zywieckie), Kurpiowskie and Nowo Sadeckie.


Duzy Polonez performing Hucul at Rowville in 1995.

POL-ART FESTIVALS

The Ensemble has taken part in all the Festivals of Polish Visual and Performing Arts, held in Australia: Sydney 1975 and 1991, Adelaide 1981 and 1994, Melbourne 1984 and 1997 and Brisbane 1988 and 2001.

Duzy Polonez performing Kieleckie at the 1994 Pol-Art Festival held in Adelade.

These festivals are the source of many memories like when in the first Sydney Pol-Art, the girls being eaten alive by mosquitoes at the school where we were staying, Ewa Kuriata taking the record for the most bites. In the second Sydney Pol-Art, Krys Dutkowski's long legs falling off stage while ding pushups in Zywiecki, and Mark Zuk falling off stage while trying to exit, and then wondering what happened. The wonderful and exuberant applause during our performances at the Festival in Adelaide in 1994, especially after Goralski, and the rapturous applause from a packed audience after our flawless performance of the Kieleckie in the Melbourne Pol-Art at the Melbourne Concert Hall.

DOROTKI

At the Union Theatre at the University of Melbourne, in September 1970, in the program "NaKrakowskim Rynku", a row of eight girls in Podlaski costumes, standing next to a small fence studded with sunflowers, took a deep breath and started to sing :Gdzie moj Jasieniu" - The Dorotki were making their first appearance, having been trained by Irena Janus Olchowik and Danusia Wolczko-Smolucha. From 1973-1975, Henryk Ruta, assisted by George Ruta, ably instructed them, while from 1976, Maryla Skora has been much more to the Dorotki than a highly valued and talented teacher and instructor, and many fir friendships have been made. Maryla is also much more to the Ensemble than a vocal teacher.

Those first Dorotki were: Irena Chwasta, Marysia Kopanska (Fabian), Jadzia Maszynowska, Ewa and Wanda Piskozub, Krysia Przybyszewska, Rita Sikorska and Aleksandra Stanek.