The 22nd edition of the Cracovia Danza Court Dance Festival will thematically refer to the beginnings of professional ballet in Poland.
The 22nd “Cracovia Danza” Court Dance Festival will be themed around the beginnings of professional ballet in Poland. The program includes performances on the Main Square as well as shows from the series Krakow Painted with Dance that take place in the city streets. What is more, in the city space there will be organised dance workshops online and live, as well as workshops for children Krakow Dances at Wawel. For the first time the workshops include a baroque ballet masterclass for the ballet school students.
– The events will be themed around the beginnings of ballet in Poland. The performances and shows will be inspired by the repertoire of the court ballet in Poland and Europe in the 15th –18th centuries as well as by the emergence of the first Polish professional ballet schools and dance groups – says Romana Agnel, festival artistic director. – The festival in its hybrid form includes live performances in the Main Square as well as short dance programs in the city streets which are also movie sets. – she adds.
On 24th July we are planning to show The First Beginnings of the Ballet – At the Hetman’ Lady Opera House, that tells the story about the emergence of one of the first ballet schools in Poland in the Branicki residence in Białystok. The performance will include, among others, a reconstruction of a dance class, masters’ stunts and grand court ball. With the presentation of the original choreographies from the first half of the 18th century and the particular selection of music and dances, the performance shows what could be seen in the court theatre, so called “operalnia” (opera house), which was run by Izabela Branicka. On Sunday, 25th July, also in the Main Square, we will see a new production of Cracovia Danza ballet Fêtes Galantes, that alludes to the garden parties of the French Rococo. The sophisticated dance scenes were inspired by baroque gardens. Among the performers of the weekend shows, apart from the Cracovia Danza dancers, there will be also some invited guests, including dance masters from Germany and France – Marie-Claire Bär Le Corre and Pierre-François Dollé.
Responding to the great interest of the audience, Cracovia Danza Ballet plans on continuing the annual series of Krakow Painted with Dance. This year the festival will bring about three new performances that speak through dance about the most beautiful monuments and art pieces in Kraków. These will include: When bells are dancing that refers to the 500 years anniversary of The Sigismund Bell
(the courtyard of Wawel Royal Castle), Harmonia mundi, that portrays an artistic vision of Copernicus’s theory and the astronomy collection of the Jagiellonian University Museum (the courtyard of Collegium Maius); as well as Muzyczna willa Marceliny Czartoryskiej, a story inspired, among others, by the influence of Chopin in Kraków’s Villa Decius. All the performances of the series Krakow Painted with Dance will be recorded and made into three film episodes, which will be broadcasted on TV3 Kraków in Autumn, and later will be available online.
From 19th to 23rd July the festival will be accompanied, as each year, by the workshops Krakow Dances led by well-known dance masters: Marie-Claire Bär Le Corre (French renaissance dance), Pierre-François Dollé (baroque dance) and Leszek Rembowski (old polish dance). The classes will be held in hybrid form – online and stationary. What is more, the workshops will include a baroque dance masterclass for ballet school students and graduates. As last year, there will be held four day long workshops for children and teenagers, Krakow Dances at Wawel. The dancers from Cracovia Danza Ballet will be the guides for this dance journey through the old Europe.
Join us at the festival!
