The 11^th anniversary edition of the Cracovia Danza Court Dance Festival

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are very pleased to welcome you to the 11th edition of the "Cracovia Danza" Court Dance Festival. The events of the 2010 Festival have been scheduled to take place between July 24^th and August 1^st.

"Dance Masters" will be the central motif weaving throughout this year's Festival. Since the Festival's inception, it is dance masters who have provided constant inspiration for the performances presented across the years. Created on the basis of treatises by the grandest of Masters, the 2010 performances are an attempt at recreating and familiarizing the audience with the great dance masters' choreographies as well as an endeavour to capture the style and character of each distinct dance form.

We would like to recommend the highlights of this year's Festival to you: "Dance with Figures" is a premiere inaugural dance and poetry performance presented on the Villa Decius open-air stage by Izabella Klebańska and the "Cracovia Danza" Court Ballet. Later in the week, during the Grand Finale, three performances will be showcased within the Arcaded Courtyard of the Wawel Royal Castle: "For My Master", the other premiere performance which on one stage will bring together all our Masters - Teachers of Festival workshops, all of whom are eminent choreographers and dance experts within their dance styles.

Presented by the "La Rossignol" Ensemble, "Suavi Memorie - arias and dances at the Italian court between the age of Giorgione and Caravaggio" will bring us closer to Italian dance traditions of the 16^th and 17^th centuries. Finally, "Chopin's Dancing World", a spectacle-performance created by the "Cracovia Danza" Court Ballet to mark the celebrations of 2010 as the Year of Fryderyk Chopin, will be staged.

Just like in the past years, the seat of the Villa Decius Association, co-organizer of the Festival, will become home to dance workshops taught by leading dance specialists: Barbara Segal (English dances), Marie Claire Le Corre (French Renaissance dances), Leszek Rembowski (Polish dances), Alaknanda Bose (Indian dance Kathak) and to newly introduced pantomime workshops run by Krzysztof Antkowiak, and stage make-up workshops run by Magdalena Wcisło.

Presented at the Villa Decius, the "Dance Masters of yesterday and of today" exhibition will bring us closer to our outstanding Teachers and their Masters, which will once again reflect the Festival's recurrent theme.

We hope that similar to previous years, profound artistic feelings will continue to spread among the participants of the workshops, the performing Artists and Ensembles, and, above all, the audience.

We are looking forward to meeting you at the Festival.