Kindergarten №15, Zvanche - Bulgaria

This is our final performance. The children are between 5 and 6 and although they are so young, they performed their dance with great enthusiasm. The first dance is from Rodops and the second from the Thracian folklore areas in Bulgaria. We hope you will like it! :)

" Polonaise" by students of John Paul II High School in Daleszyce

Hello again! This is our recording ready to be watched. These are the third year students of John Paul II High School in Daleszyce in Poland. They prepared this Polish traditional dance, and they were very motivated by the fact you would see them dancing. Our headmaster is dancing in the first pair.The Eurodance 2010 Contest seems a great opportunity to share what we like and what the past generations taught us to do. It's nice to say that the decorations of the room (a gym) were made by the students. Greetings from Poland!

Primary school Spinut from Split, Croatia

Old Split dances
The traditional dance in our city of Split was founded more than 100 years. It consists of three dances: "monfrina", "četvorka" and "šaltin polka" These dances are characterized by elegant moves, refined posture and softness of steps which show the influence of Western part of the Mediterranean.

Gedminai main school, Klaipėda, Lithuania

This is our final performance.

Lithuanian traditional dance "Kalvelis" and

Lithuanian traditional dance "Kauškutis"

Best wishes from Klaipėda!!!

Kindergarten №15, Zvanche - Bulgaria

Bulgaria consists of 6 folklore regions- Thracian, Shopska, Northern, Strandja, Rodopska and Pirinska. Each one of them is unique and beautiful with a different dance tempo and music. Also every region is characterized by a special national costume with matchless features. Kazanlak is in the Thracian folklore region.
The dance with which we are taking part in this project is from the Rodop region. It’s based on a famous Bulgarian song and it is extremely suitable for the kids of this age. In this short presentation we have decided to make you familiar with our town and kindergarten and also to show us in action. Remember this still a repetition and it needs a lot of work, yet I hope you will like it.

Istituto Montale - Italy

This is the competition entry from Istituto Montale - Italy.

Dear Eurodance Friends,

It has been such a pleasure for us and our students to take part in this project. We have had the opportunity to meet a lot of interesting and challenging school realities. Our dance is not a traditional one, as in Tuscany there are no traditional dances at least none that students know or still practise, probably in other parts of Italy, in the south of Italy for example or the islands dance tradtions are still alive. So we let the students decide what to do and as we are rehearsing for a final performance in June during the students' festival we thought we might send a sequence of the show we are working on. It is an adaptation of the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and we have also painted the beautiful mask of the pharaoh you can see in the background. We are really eager to watch all your beautiful dances and we hope you will dedicate a few minutes to our video too. We ideally shake all your hands and magically dancing we hold you tight in a huge hug.

A DEMOTIKO SXOLEIO XYLOFAGOU CYPRUS

This is our competition entry.

Thank you so much for your solidarity and sympathy!

Dear friends cooperating on this Eurodance 2010 Blog!

Thank you so much for your sympathy and solidarity during these sad days!

Thank you Alan and Laura for this opportunity for us to work united together in our tasks, duties, everyday problems, sharing our sorrows! We would like to build a good Europe, where nations respect one another and admire cultural differences, which make it so wonderfully colourful. This is what was President Lech Kaczynski loved!

Bozena Kraj, teachers and students from John Paul II High School in Daleszyce!

Hi! We are from a Polish John Paul II High School in Daleszyce.

Here we would like to tell you something about our dance, polonaise.
The polonaise is a stately Polish processional dance, performed by couples who walk around the dance hall; the music is in triple meter and moderate tempo. The dance developed from the Polish dance (taniec polski) of the 18th century; this form, in turn, was derived from the chodzony (walking dance) which was popular in the 17th century and known as a pieszy (pedestrian), or chmielowy (hops) dance. The latter form had its roots in the folk wedding dances, from which it separated and then entered the dance repertoire of the nobility. The folk variants continued to develop independently of the "Polish dance," resulting in such dances as chodzony, chmielowy (in the villages), and świeczkowy (in the towns).

Hello from Daleszyce, Poland

We are ready to publish our video recording of a Polish dance Polonaise. We would like to share it with joy, yet the event that took place yesterday makes us really very sad and we will do it in 2 weeks.

Our President Lech Kaczynski, his wife Mary, and other 94 peole died in a plane crash in Smolensk, Russia. They wanted to take part in an official event connected with Katyn, Russia - where 70 years ago over 20, 000 Polish officers had been killed by shoothing at their heads. We knew a lot of people who were on the plane, bishops, MPs, people devoted to our country. We can't express what we feel; what's more, tomorrow we will have an earlier planned drama on Katyn presented by our students. Poland is mourning.

We are sending all of you hearty greetings from Daleszyce, Poland!

KLAIPEDA GEDMINAI MAIN SCHOOL - LITHUANIAN TRADITIONAL DANCE

Each nation creates the own national art, but the various factors influence them during evolution. Lithuanian folk art has changed in its form and content during the tradition periods. Ritual roundelays and dances gradually lost their mystical value and transferred to the dances and roundelays for recreation and fun. The genre of the traditional Lithuanian folk dance is still alive. People used to learn dances from parents and grandparents whose lives have been still greatly influenced by customs and traditions and who mastered dancing folk dances directly from their parents in outdoor country parties. Folk ensembles, who still participate in folklore collection expeditions in rural areas willingly dance these dances.

Lithuanians, as well as their Baltic neighbors, have always loved to dance. Young people gathered to dance in field parties (in summer), or in farmer houses (in winter). Older people and small children also took part in these festivities talking, socializing, and generally amusing themselves.

Looking still further back into the history, dance was also a part of ancient Lithuanian calendar celebrations and rituals.

Lithuanian folk dance "Kalvelis"

Kalvelis - in English it's mean a little blacksmith. It is very simple and very well-known Lithuanian dance. Looking at its name it might seem as it is a blacksmith's work depicting dance, but there isn't anything like this either in the movement or in the figures of the dance. Just a frequent clapping dancers' hands a little bit reminds the forging. The dance is rather quick, but it is easy to learn and funny to dance.