One of the most amazing memories of a lifetime of loving Chopin is the New Year's Eve Party at the musical home of Roza Kostrzewska Yoder and Douglas Yoder, pianists, and parents of three young pianists. At midnight, to welcome the New Year 2010, all guests danced the Polonaise, to live performance by Douglas Yoder. By now, I forgot which Polonaise it was, maybe the Heroic one, Op. 53 in A-flat Major ? In any case, the music shook the whole house as we danced around the music studio, up and down the stairs to the living-room and the balcony. The moon was huge, in an enormous "fox hat" reddish halo, the night was cold and alive with music and love and beauty. I wrote a poem after driving back home.
While looking for my poem, I found an old post about this experience, described in 2012:
"One dance captured my attention and remained in my memory: Chopin's Polonaise in A Major, Op. 40, nicknamed "The Military" (the link points to a YouTube recording by Maurizio Pollini). Yes, the same Polonaise that gave its first notes to a signal of the British broadcasts to occupied Poland during World War II. And here we are, dancing? Just after midnight all the guests at the party lined up in a long line of couples, the host sat at the grand piano and off we went. Around the living room, out onto the patio, up and down the steps, out one door, in another, all over the house... The moon was unusually bright that night, surrounded by an enormous halo, a portent of things to come. I felt a rush of pride, elation even, when we moved along with dignity, in triple meter: one long step with bended knees and two short ones. Down, up, up, down, up, up, around the house, around the world... It was so incredibly moving - a small group of Poles and their international rag-tag bunch of friends dancing to music written almost two hundred years ago and heard in so many homes, on so many concert stages. Welcome the new year, the year of Chopin! That was two years ago - and the tradition of dancing that particular Polonaise at midnight continues.
On the way back home, I drove through an unfamiliar neighborhood and saw boys playing with a bonfire on the front lawn of their small house. It was a working class neighborhood with tiny houses squished in neat rows on streets leading up to the hill of the Occidental College. The moon, the fire, the dance - I was inspired to write a haibun about it. It was recently published in an Altadena anthology, Poetry and Cookies, edited by Pauli Dutton, the Head Librarian of the Altadena Public Library:
Midnight Fire
In the golden holiness of a night that will never be seen again and will never return… (From a Gypsy tale)
After greeting the New Year with a Chopin polonaise danced around the hall, I drove down the street of your childhood. It was drenched with the glare of the full moon in a magnificent sparkling halo. The old house was not empty and dark. On the front lawn, boys were jumping around a huge bonfire. They screamed with joy, as the flames shot up to the sky. The gold reached out to the icy blue light, when they called me to join their wild party. Sparks scattered among the stars. You were there, hidden in shadows. I sensed your sudden delight.
my rose diamond broochsparkles on the black velvet -stars at midnight
© 2010 by Maja Trochimczyk
I wrote more verse about the Polonaise itself, but all the descriptions fell short of the delight I felt that night, so it was reduced to just an introduction to a story that has no end. The contrast of warm flames and icy moonlight was unforgettable. I added the romance, of course - poetry is not supposed to be real - though, when rooted in an actual experience, it touches a nerve in listeners. After one reading I was asked by an eager member of the audience: "So what about the man who gave you that brooch? Where is he now?" My answer? "There was no man. This is my brooch, I got it for my daughter and she returned it to me, since I go out to fancy evening parties and she does not" I said. There was nobody lurking in the shadows. . . The poem sounds better this way, though."
The repetitiveness of the "Military" Polonaise with the easily recognizable initial phrase and its steady rhythm result in music that is perfect for dancing to, not just enjoying in the concert hall.
Another, quite memorable dancing experience, with the music by Chopin, played magnificently by Wojciech Kocyan, professor at Loyola Marymount University and a genius of color and expression at the keyboard, was associated with the poetry anthology that gave rise to this blog. We held one of the early readings from the new Chopin with Cherries anthology at the Ruskin Art Club in the spring of 2010 and what a reading it was! To weave poetry and music into a seamless whole, with each poet reading their work and the pianist providing brief interludes of a kind they wrote about - etudes, preludes, mazurkas, nocturnes, waltzes... Pure magic.
I asked Edward Hoffman, the Artistic Director and choreographer of the Polish Folk Dance Ensemble Krakusy in Los Angeles, to come in costume and lead the Polonaise to live Chopin music played by Kocyan. Mr. Hoffman graciously led the poets and guests in a dance around the hall. Dressed in a Polish nobleman's festive outfit, a velvet "kontusz" with slit sleeves, a feathered hat and carrying a sabre ("szabla"), Mr. Hoffman transformed Chopin's Polonaise into an actual dance that it rarely was, a noble and uplifting motion around the hall. Here's Mr. Hoffman showing the proper bow at the end of the dance, with Halina Wojcik.
Most poets in attendance have never danced the polonaise before. It is a Polish tradition: each Ball, be it a prom in high school, or a New Year's Eve Ball, starts with a Polonaise - danced in couples, following the lead couple around the hall, out to the patio, between the tables, out to the garden if there's one. The polonaise also includes special figures, including a "bridge," turning back under two rows of dancers with raised hands. It is a "walking dance" ("chodzony"), suitable for everyone - young and old. It is also very noble and elegant in character. You can read more about history of the Polonaise in my essay on the Polish Music Center website: https://polishmusic.usc.edu/research/dances/polonaise/
Here's Chopin's Polonaise Op. 40 in A Major with words and in an orchestral setting, performed by the Lira Ensemble of Chicago. They are dressed in 1807-12 costumes of the Duchy of Warsaw, a short-lived satellite state ruled by Napoleon during the Napoleonic wars, before the disastrous invasion of Russia. Men in military uniforms with sabres, women in high-breasted muslin dresses with puff sleeves and shawls. Very elegant and appropriate to the "military" tone of the music. The same costumes are reproduced at the top of this blog, from a performance by Krakusy Folk Dance Ensemble.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cV588pudkU
Here's the same Chopin Polonaise played, albeit too slowly, by a young pianist and danced on the stage in 2016:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpQ0kryd83Y
Children from the Polish American Dance Company danced a polonaise at the art gallery of the Kosciuszko Foundation in New York. The caption says it is a Chopin polonaise, but I do not recall one sounding like that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_JMzZEI0aU
International students at the Erasmus program also learned this dance. Here they are, with the currently most popular Polonaise in Poland: Wojciech Kilar's Polonaise from the film Pan Tadeusz.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iSDBTTxQMk
The same Kilar Polonaise was used for the choreography of the Polonaise Polish Folk Arts Ensemble, celebrating its 35th anniversary in Edmonton, Canada:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOpQShwGRt4
Kilar's Polonaise was also played and dance at the Old Town Square in Krakow by a "flash mob" organized by a local orchestra and Cracovia Danze historic dance group. These quasi-spontaneous events, surprise to the random audience are always fun, though the focus was on the orchestra instead of making everyone dance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAHVknRJlzg
And here's Singapore's diplomatic corps dancing the Polonaise at their Ball in 2018, pulled into the game by the costumed folk-dancers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NliidrnmaY
The Kilar Polonaise is 7 min long, so it gives enough time to repeat figures, circle around the hall, all in the steady repetitive rhythm of its melody. But it gets tiring after a while, a bit like Ravel's Bolero. Why don't we return to dancing Chopin's Military Polonaise? Or Michal Kleofas Oginski's famous "Farewell to the Homeland" Polonaise so appropriate for all emigrants? I did not find it danced, so here's an orchestral version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWajYHs4goU
It is interesting that the Polonaise is also very popular among the Russian. Let's watch Russian youth dancing to Piotr Tchaikovsky's Polonaise from his opera Eugene Onegin. So elegant, with traditional ball gowns, and roses. That Polonaise in the opera was danced by proud Polish nobility, the enemy of Russian heroes and heroines of the opera. But the music lost its negative association in the dance hall. Here is the Pushkin Ball 2011:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3e1OH1BpjA
A traditional polonaise in 17th century nobility costumes was danced in the Main Square of Krakow's old town by Cracovia Danze ensemble playing a chamber version of a historic polonaise by Prince Michal Radziwill, choreographed by
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4zxwxXElmQ
For poets from the Chopin with Cherries anthology, the Polonaise was music to listen to and reflect about, rather than a dance to enjoy movement together and integrate the community. Here's Kath Abela Wilson reflecting on hearing and playing Chopin.
How I Fell in Love with Chopin
he did not own a piano
hesitant shy unsure
I brought him to my mother’s house
where the old upright
moved in by seminarians last winter
still leaked snow
frail on the long walk
uphill he carried
the polonaises
told me how
he’d had polio as a child
came breathless to the bench
transfixed
we were all long afternoon
turned to dark
white moon balanced
ebony benched the sky
polished sound and circumstance
power I leaned into
he moved into my small apartment
took my mother’s piano apart to rework it
keys scattered everywhere
for three years
it did not last
I had to collect them in a box
I don’t think it ever got back together
but I realized in that time
I had fallen in love
with Chopin
(c) Kath Abela Wilson from Chopin with Cherries anthology (2010)
