Music for download – „Polka łużniańska"

POLKA SUWIEC “ŁUŻNIAŃSKA” (the Shuffle polka from the region of Łużna)

The name of this dance comes from the name of the Łużna village near Gorlice, where it used to be very popular. It is considered an old-fashioned dance, performed mainly by the so-called Pogórzanie people (The People of the Foothills). Polka suwiec is a two-part dance that is performed around a circle in any number of couples, using a shuffle step (a flat step).
It is played in a double meter (2/4) at a fast pace and it is usually preceded by a short folk song. In the 1st part of the dance, the dancers move by balancing between the exterior of the circle and the interior of the circle. In the 2nd part, they use the whirling step and spin around a circle. In this part of the dance, the dancers can also use the characteristic polka spinning step, in which they bend the leg on the count of “ONE”. In the last bar of the melody, the couple performs a double stamp.

The Shuffle polka from the region of Łużna is the basic dance in the repertoire of the “Łużna” Song and Dance Ensemble, which operates in Łużna since 1937 and promotes the culture of the region both in Poland and abroad.