Poetical and musical ”Spring” in the House of Polish Culture

“Today we had a chance to look at the beauty of poetry and music of the Vilnius Region. We have here, in the region, amazing artists and fantastic audience. Full self – service!” – this is how, very accurately, poet Andrzej Sokołowski, the leader of the Association of Polish Writers in Lithuania has characterised the poetical and musical event “Spring, it’s you” that took place on 7^th April.

During the concert, performances of young singers were mixed with performances of poets, who recited their own poems. “The concert was successful, for sure, it has connected different generations. Non-traditional forms of presenting poetry showed that poetry can be attractive for the contemporary audience. For the first time in history you could hear the works of Worotyński in a rock arrangement. We plan to develop the idea of the concert further, we hope that in a year or two it will go beyond the local level and become an international event, we hope that it will become a festival. We are thinking about writing something together, in the future, a work that would be the hymn of the event.” – said Marzena Mackojć, poet and one of the leaders of the New Vilnius Avant-garde to PL DELFI.

The very first one to perform was Joanna Zawalska, and just after her the audience could see pop singer Agnieszka Wołczek, who, on the list of her artistic achievements, has working together with leaders of the Lithuanian electro-rock stage, Happyendless. Then poets of the New Vilnius Avant-garde presented their works to the audience: Marzena Mackojć, Elżbieta Czerniawska, Tomek Tamašiunas, Dariusz Kaplewski and others. After them, on the stage appeared, for the second time, singers and musicians: Monika Jodko, Paweł Czechwicz, Miłada Milto… And again there came poets, but this time those belonging to the older generation: Aleksander Sokołowski, Teresa Markiewicz and Apolonia Skakowska. And once again there came singers: Greta Buzarewicz, who is slowly becoming our another, along with Niemycko and Saszenko, pop star, Rob B. Colton from the Friends with Benefits band… The audience particularly enjoyed the last performance. Maybe it was not the best show of the concert, from the technical point of view, but the laughter, the sense of humour and the positive attitude of Colton and his humorous songs influenced all the people gathered on the audience immediately.

In the course of the whole afternoon the everlasting hits „Kolorowe  jarmarki” and „Wsiąść do pociągu…” were mixed with more ambitious soul, rock and jazz pieces of music, unrhymed poems with classical ones, and histories about en elephant and penguins with philosophical reflections on dreams. In short, there was something nice for everyone, especially since the audience gathered in the room was really diverse: starting from children from kindergarten, through teenagers who love the rock music, up until mature people and elderly ones.

And at the end of the concert, which lasted almost three hours, there was a performance of the Kite Art band, which was started by four Lithuanian Poles. It was probably the first rock concert in years, which I listened to sitting. In spite of appearances, it has had good results, because there appeared a good chance to listen to and feel the music of the Lithuanian Joy Division deeper. It has to be admitted that Lithuanian critics, who more and more often see in Kite Art the future of the Lithuanian indie rock are right, to a great extent. With every concert the band sounds better and better, more mature, stronger. This time we had more songs sang in Polish that usually (which has to be counted as a good thing), and especially for the “Spring, it’s you” festival Kite Art has prepared a song to the words of the poem “Samotność” (“Loneliness”) by Sławomir Worotyński. If someone was able to sing Worotyński, to transfer his words into music, it could only be Kite Art, with their melancholic, trance music, in which ambient, indie rock and punk merge into one…

The traditional concert, or rather the festival (looking at the number of participants it is more like a festival) “Spring, it’s you!” in the House of the Polish Culture in Vilnius was prepared by the literary group New Vilnius Avant-Garde, which is associated with the Association of Polish Writers in Lithuania.

Source: http://pl.delfi.lt/kultura/kultura/poetycko-muzyczna-wiosna-w-dkp.d?id=61094075

Tłumaczenie Emilia Zawieracz w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Emilia Zawieracz within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.