| From the 28th of December 2012 to the 5th of January 2013, Perth played host to a very special Polish cultural event - PolArt 2012. As it was the first time the festival was seen in the Western Australian Capital, the expectations were rather high among the 800 participating performers from across Australia and New Zealand. Perth, however, was not the only newcomer to the event, as it was also my very first involvement in a PolArt festival.
After months and months of hard preparation, I, along with the other 25 or so participating dancers and entourage of the Sydney based Polish Song and Dance Ensemble ‘Lajkonik’, arrived in Perth feeling anxious and excited for the coming days ahead. I had heard so much about the previous PolArt held three years earlier in Adelaide from my fellow dancers, and couldn’t wait for my first real taste of the festival.
The ‘Summer’s Evening’ themed Opening Disco was just a glimpse of what PolArt was all about. The night was a great one, filled with loud music, dancing and many opportunities to get to know our fellow performers. By the end of the night, we were talking and mixing with people from other dancing groups as if we had known them all our lives!
The many practices we had over the next 10 days, including the very first at the Cracovia Club, provided even more time to bond with the other dancers, and soon enough we had developed friendships we knew we’d keep long after PolArt was over, which is really what the event is all about.
The Opening Concert was the first of the five concerts we were to perform at, and also our first showcase of the Polish Culture we so love to perform to the Perth Community. The combined Finale dance, which had taken a lot of rehearsal and trust in the other performers, was the highlight of the event, and also of the three concerts held in the Perth Concert Hall that followed. It was an exhibit of the cooperation, hard work and dedication put in by all twelve of the participating groups, and finished each concert off with a bang!
Besides being the stars of the show and making great new friendships, PolArt Perth for Lajkonik was also about exploring our heritage by our involvement in a project with the Blum Foundation. We first interviewed Polish migrants who came to Australia after the Second World War, and later while in Fremantle, posed for a realistic photo shoot dressed in typical clothing of those times. I think the project gave us all a bit of an insight as to what it must have been like for the immigrants, which is great to see in our younger generation.
To conclude, PolArt Perth 2012 was a wonderful experience for me and one that, along with all the youth, I will never forget. It wasn’t just about performing, but also about carrying on traditions and meeting new people, some of whom I don’t think I will ever lose contact with. Perth has definitely raised the bar, and I think we are all excited about what Melbourne will offer in 2015.
By Vicki Hospodaryk
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