POLONIA

 

 

New Year's Eve Performance in the Polish American Club "POLONEZ"
 Florida, Fort Lauderdale


Five pairs escaped the cold of Chicago to travel about 1,360 miles to sunny Fort Lauderdale. With hotels right near the beach front, we spent every day relaxing, tanning, taking long walks along the shore and playing volleyball.
 
For New Years Eve, our group arrived at the Polish American Club "POLONEZ" where the ballroom was decorated beautifully. We started the night off with one of five national dances of Poland, the Polonez. Once our five pairs finished the dance, each dancer asked a distinguished member of the community to join them in another Polonez, led by our director Ania Krysinska.. This dance was a way for our group to show our thanks for those community members who had helped us come to Florida and perform for them.

The guests at the Polish American Club enjoyed dinner and some dancing. After dinner, we performed a waltz. Our final dance was Nowy Sacz. It is a dance that was choreographed a few years ago when Jerzy Zyczynski, a member of the Polish American Club, came to Chicago to teach it to our group. After our final performance, our group as well as all the guests who had been enjoying our performances joined together to dance. All generations combined to dance until 4 A.M.

Our stay in Fort Lauderdale is a vacation we won’t soon forget. There were so many people who contributed to making our stay so memorable. First and foremost, we’d like to thank the President of the Polish American Club of Ft. Lauderdale, Zdzislaw Zielinski. It is because of Mr. Zielinski that we were invited to come to Florida. Without him, our trip would NOT have been possible.

Our thanks go to Jerzy Zyczynski, who has put much time and effort into our group previous to Florida. As choreographer of the group “Sadeczoki” Mr. Zyczynski put his own time and effort into making sure we did our best. We hope we performed his Sacz justice.

We’d like to extend a huge thanks to our hotel owners who made our stay comfortable and relaxing. Ryszard Czapla, owner of Ocean Breeze Hotel, Krzysztof Poprawski, owner of Sunrise Inn and Zenon Marzec, owner of Paradise by the Sea.

To see photos and read more about our trip to Florida visit New Year's Eve Party in the Polonez club