The Spring Concert is behind us!
The Academic Dance Ensemble of the Silesian University of Technology “Dąbrowiacy” performed on May the 9th at the Student Culture Centre “Mrowisko” with a repertoire prepared for the Spring Concert. Visitors could get to know the traditions and customs that accompanied people during the welcoming of spring, when the seasons changed and the nature dormant through the winter was waking up to life. The dancers carried the audience into the colourful and joyful world of spring rituals.
In the past, when the ceremonial year was closely related to the cycle of nature, our ancestors, with rites, prayers and rituals, sought to ensure prosperity and protection for the whole coming year. After the silence of Lent, the music and the bustle of joy resounded again, and the limited social life was revived, creating the opportunity for young people to get to know each other and bond together.
The student group presented repertoire from Zagłębie Dąbrowiskie, Krakow, Lublin, and Pszczyna. There was also the restoration of Silesian marshmallows rituals and walking with a “goiczek.” The audience could get to know the Małopolska customs of expelling Judas, which was a symbolic cleansing from evil and misfortunes, learn what were the rules of raising, burning and drowning Marzanna’s puppets in Upper Silesia, and listen to curiosities about the customs associated with the “Wet Monday.” While in the Dąbrowa Basin the girls were poured on with water without moderation, in the Lublin region the young bachelors had the right to repeat this custom with the girls on Sundays falling two weeks after Easter. Only buying treats could spare the girls such doubtful attractions.
During the performance, there was also a group of students of the Ensemble, who prepared the repertoire of the highlanders of the Silesian Beskidy Mountains and dances and songs from the vicinity of Rzeszów for this occasion. For the mountainous regions, the arrival of spring marked the long-awaited beginning of pastoral and farm work, the incensing of fields and pastures began, and the boys trying to get the girls had the opportunity to decorate the yard of the chosen one with a few meters long timber pile dug into the ground as proof of their feelings. On the other hand, in the vicinity of Rzeszów, young men dressed as a gypsy and a bear, walked around the villages performing tricks, singing, and asking for donations or good snacks.
Despite the differences in customs between individual regions of Poland, all the events and rituals presented during the performance testify to the strength of the community and the life cycle, which invariably lasts. People in traditional cultures functioned in the rhythm of cycles of nature and border events, and the rites – especially during the period of breakthroughs – were aimed at ensuring order, protecting, and gaining favour of higher forces.
Presenting selected rites, Dąbrowiacy transported the audience into a secret world that shaped our culture and tradition, whose echoes we encounter to this day.
Author Barbara Lisiecka
Photo by Alicja Dyllus
