This is a full text transcript of barbara-klimas-interview.

Oral history recording transcript
Duration: 1 hour 31 minutes
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Chapters
01 Traditional Polish Folk Costumes
02 Beginnings of Passion and Development of Orlęta Dance Group
03 Festivals and Performances of Orlęta Dance Group
04 Family Life and Traditions in Streatham
05 Historia rodziców i ich losy podczas wojny

Agnieszka Tadaj: My name is Agnieszka Tadaj, and today is 27th March 2021. We are both in London but we're speaking on the Zoom call and today I'll be talking to Basia Klimas. So I’d like you just to start maybe telling a little bit about yourself.

[00:00:21]

Basia Klimas: Hello. Thank you very much for inviting me. I thought I'd talk about my costumes first because there is a wealth of them. Polish folklore is very rich in terms of a variety of costumes and as well as dances and songs. So running a dance group, you have to be prepared to acquire or make many costumes because every region is danced in a very different sort of costume altogether. So we've brought a few samples up from my costume room, which is tiny.

Everything is held in drawers and boxes, in sliding cupboards. Every time we want to reach something, we have to take sliding cupboards out of the room, boxes out of the room in order to reach behind to other costumes. It's a jigsaw puzzle, really hard work. So we brought a few up into my study. And to help demonstrate these costumes, I've asked my husband to be here, my wonderful English husband. Gervais, would like to stand up and if stand stands a bit lower so we can see your face as well.

AG: Hello. [laughter]

[00:01:31]

BK: Gervais is a wonderfully supportive husband. As you can see. He must be in order to help. If you come back, Gervais, sorry. Gervais is wearing a Kraków costume. The Poland is most is most known for a costume from the city of Kraków. If you turn around, Gervais, to show that, you don't have to have your arm… [laughter], turn around from the back. The back is split so that they can do sit on a horse comfortably. Yeah. [laughter] He’s wearing a white leather belt with studs and jangles on the side which make a noise when they're dancing. The hat. Lower… the hat. A red, a very typical traditional patriotic red hat with many feathers on the side. And because it's a wedding party, they're always accompanied with the ribbons, from the flowers, from the from the feathers. So he's wearing a Kraków costume, which is traditionally known by… Gervais, would you pass the first Kraków costume of a girl? So to go with that, we have a selection here so that this is a bodice, a traditional bodice from Kraków who comes with a beautiful blouse, of course, and the skirt with flowers and an apron. This particular one has an apron made of lace. And if you bring the other one out instead, Gervais. You'll notice that Gervais is wearing a red ribbon around his neck. The red ribbon is important because it wards off evil. All the Polish costumes have red ribbons at the front. This is a different Kraków costume. This costume is from eastern Kraków. You can wear a flower skirt, mostly flowers, because this one usually has white skirts with it and a very different green. Can you turn the back around, please? Again, very different. And if you just put that one back and bring out the blue sequined one instead, let me hold this one for you, okay? So, Gervais is actually wearing a costume which is partially from eastern Kraków. So again, a very different bodice. Could you turn the back again? Very nice bead embroidered, not embroidery, but bead appliqué and some sequins as well. Thank you, Gervais. Put those back. The girls also wear red ribbons, again, warding off evil. But one of the other things that they wear, which you'll see at the very end, is red beads.

[00:03:52]

Now, the red beads are very important for a girl because they denote her dowry. So the more red beads she has, the richer she is. And there are many Polish songs that sing about: “Mama, tata, please give me a string of beads, but a very long string of beads to show that I… that you love me as your daughter”. So that was a dowry from… with a proper string of beads which were made of coral probably imported from the Red Sea because there was that trade route up to the amber trade route. You could buy a cow with it or you could buy two cows or whatever. So that was there.

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