If they're not doing it with the stars, they're doing it on ice, in pairs, in groups or in the English style.
Presented by Mags Korczak.
Choreographed dancing is all the rage in Poland and whilst its current popularity is evident through the number of TV shows like Dancing on Ice, Dancing with the Stars and You can Dance, not to mention the infinite number of new dance schools appearing to pop up weekly, dancing in Poland isn't just a temporary entertainment fad but a long standing passion.
It seems that everybody in Poland knows how to dance and I'm not talking about a little wiggle here and a little waggle there, no I'm talking about the proper ballroom, polka, cha-cha-cha, boy-girl stuff, something that having lived in England for most of my life, I've little experience of being able to execute elegantly. I can shimmy my stuff on a club dance floor no problem but this doesn't really require much co-ordination or any expert knowledge. Whilst watching Dancing with the Stars, I became acquainted with a genre called English style. I've yet to comprehend what this means exactly but judging by what the contestants are doing I think it generally means dancing without a set style, a kind of free-for-all. That says it all really.
If you're ever in a night club in Poland you'll probably have to battle for whatever already limited space there is on the dance-floor with a large number of couples content on demonstrating the best way to secure more space by swing jiving their way into you. On a night out recently, my Polish-Canadian friend and I were fascinated by the youngsters coupled up to dance. What is normal for me as a Brit and my Canadian friend to see on the parquet in our respective countries is the two step side shuffle, which goes something like- left step together, right step together, left step together and repeated all night mostly likely accompanied by some erratic arm waving and a drink and cigarette in hand.
However, in Poland, when someone says they want to go to a club to dance, they do actually mean to dance. These young couples that my friend and I saw were not some young professional dancers on a night out but normal, fashionable, hip (annoying) teenage boys and girls. There is absolutely no way an 18 year old boy in England would choose to swing dance with a girl, it just doesn't happen, it would be considered uncool, geeky and sad. No doubt you would be ostracised for life for knowing how to move your feet in time to a rhythm. Impressively, there's none of this sentiment amongst the beverage-fuelled youth here, it seems that boys knowing how to dance is the way to impressing a young lady. Putting this even more into context, I was dumbfounded when I discovered that my flatmate in his teenage years had won medals for dancing. A guy who these days has waist length hair and a fan of that thrash heavy metal kind of music. Needless to say, appearances are deceiving.
One of my Polish cousins commented once that she was surprised to find that at a couple of British wedding she'd been to the guests didn't dance. I half-heartedly agreed with her at the time not really understanding what she could mean since at all the British weddings I'd been to there had been a DJ spinning some old school 70s handbag classics to a handful of people tapping their feet to the beat and singing/shouting along. However, after experiencing a Polish wedding and the dancing there I have to whole heartedly agree with her comment. Brits do not dance at weddings and this was really noticeable at a recent Polish wedding I attended where the only guests who didn't dance all night were the British ones. Obviously that didn't include me, I counted myself as very Polish for this occasion. However, I was a bit apprehensive before my induction onto the dance-floor and then even more terrified when I actually saw everyone start to quick-step to some disco-polo hit. I froze and mumbled to my partner that I didn't know how to do what those people were doing explaining the whole side-step together shuffle motion that us western girls are more accustomed to doing. "Don't worry", he said, "it'll be ok". Well it was, it turns out. A good partner leads and after a few minutes stepping on his feet and bumping into some other people, I began to relax and properly shimmy my stuff even being so brave as to accept dances with unknown men, because it would be rude to refuse and because it's a wedding and that's what you do.
Now, if only they taught the boys to dance in England the country would be a more elegant place. So some advice, if you ever decide to come to Poland, I suggest you familiarise yourself with a few steps pre-departure and prepare to dance the night away.