Has anyone seen Mazowsze (established in 1948)

[quote"Mazowsze" was established by a decree issued by the Ministry of Culture and Art on 8 November 1948. The decree ordered Professor Tadeusz Sygietyński to create a folk group that would maintain regional artistic traditions and the traditional folk repertoire of songs and dances of the Masovian countryside. The group was intended to protect this folk tradition from destruction and encapsulate its diversity, beauty and richness. At the beginning Mazowsze's repertoire contained songs and dances from only a few regions of Poland – Opoczno and Kurpie, but it soon extended its range by adopting the traditions of other regions.][/quote]

Just as Hitler is credited with the VW and Autobahns, so too Poland's commie regime bankrolled Mazowsze and ŚLąsk and created Cepelia which not only gave employment to the poor countryside but helped preserve many ancient crafts that would have been lost otherwise. The Polish school of poster graphics and avant-garde theatre (after the collapse of stalinism, of course) were also possible thanks to generous commie-era subsidies.

yeah wow, thanks for that ok.

Mazowsze have a special effect on certain people in that they are sometimes seen as "fake-lore", as in 'not real traditional' and, indeed, possibly harmful to genuine traditional music.

They are also seen by some as symbollic of communism ("communist-approved folk-lore"). In Central and Eastern Europe there is/was a movement from the late 1980's known as 'post-folk-loric', where a number of musicians tried to search out older, more original forms.

Well they had to do something to avoid uprisings... They sure knew something about earlier Polish uprisings :)

Funnily enough, the folk-lore thing was very strong in pre-war Europe and Hitler did his bit with it too.

so the part where the guy holds the other guy upside down and somesaults around is not real tradition, hah j/k i had no idea so thanks guys, i saw it in new jersey and i enjoyed it myself but i did not think of the communist aspect.

can someone spell it phonetically for me or ill look it up, thanks again.

edit* ive read some about folklore and traditions and now i wonder what was real or not and what was written when and by who so it seems to be a real issue for me as a pol-am its not too serious cause im casual about it.

I've seen Mazowsze a couple years ago in the States. I have to say they gave a really beautiful show. Czar, I'm not a specialist, but I would say the music would be pretty authentic. The dancing, I'm not sure. It was very choreographed, on some occasions it almost looked like ballet. I doubt simple village folks danced like that.

and where was the may pole heh ;p