On Friday (31 May), 200 people danced the polonaise in Bolesławiec’s market square as part of the “Road to Freedom” ceremony – the 30th anniversary of the June 1989 elections. Soldiers from the US Army also danced the polonaise alongside Bolesławiec residents. The ceremony concluded with a concert by the State Music School Orchestra.
The polonaise is a Polish national dance, formerly known as a court dance. The name polonaise was borrowed from French – polonaise. Since the beginning of the 19th century, the polonaise has generally been regarded as the oldest national dance, whose form cultivated among the upper classes represented a refined version of dances that had existed in Polish society for centuries. The polonaise is danced in the national epic “Pan Tadeusz” and is regarded as a dance associated with Polish culture, expressing the Sarmatian chivalric ethos and customary norms in social relations. Depending on the region of the country where it was danced, it appeared under various names, such as: “Polish dance”, “walking dance”, “on foot”, “strolling”, “slow”, “slowly”, “round”, “ancient”, “old-fashioned”, “hop”, and even “goose dance”.