Catalonian Festival (Spain) 2003 (English)
A window of opportunity to participate in the Catalonian Festival in Spain became available to us in July of this year. This tour was organised by Rayburn Tours of Derby and was to replace our original planned trip to Tunisia, which due to adverse terrorist activities in the region, was cancelled.
We applied for £ 3,000 to partially cover our travelling and accommodation costs to Spain. The total cost of the tour for the 14 children dancers was £ 5,866. Eight adults, consisting of six musicians, one stage manager and one costume wardrobe, also accompanied the children on tour and paid their own way. The Dance Ensemble subsidised the children members to the sum of nearly £ 3,000 through self fund raising events.
Breakdown of the 14 children members taking part were as follows : 5 girls aged between 10 and 16, 9 boys aged between 5 and 17.
We departed on Sunday August 17th from Derby for Dover and travelled overnight through France. We arrived in Blanes on the Costa Brava Monday afternoon August 18th . This was to be our base for the next 5 days/4 nights in front of an international audience.
Our first evening performance was in Blanes Lyons Majestic Hotel consisting of an hour and a half concert of dance and music.
Our second performance was on Tuesday evening August 19th in Pineda de Mar at the Placa de les Melies in front of nearly 600 locals and holiday makers.
Our third official performance was on Thursday August 21st at the Plaza de la Villa – Lloret De Mar in front of the Town Hall. Again a crowd of over 500 people watched with enthusiasm and were amazed to learn about Ukrainian Arts in form of Dance and Music. Here we were also presented with a plaque from the local Town Council. This was to celebrate our visit and concert in their lovely coastal town (photograph enclosed).
We also performed an unofficial concert on the Wednesday evening in Blanes for the local people who fell in love with our children’s performance.
At all the venues we were overwhelmed by the heartfelt welcome and appreciation for all the efforts of the Dance Ensemble. Officials and members of the public were impressed by the dedication and commitment of the children and young people involved. Our dancers proved themselves excellent ambassadors as they proudly explained who they were and why they maintained their culture, which is greatly aided by support of grants such as Normanton Youth Small Projects Grants.
Whilst appearing at the venues we came across many Eastern Europeans who found it difficult to understand that third generation children and youth could achieve such a high standard especially when they discovered that they were based in Normanton, Derby and not Kiev in Ukraine. The Spanish people were full of praise for the Dance Ensemble and many approached us for contact addresses expressing a desire for us to participate at some point in the future in local cultural festivals.
We combined our tour with educational visits to the historical City of Barcelona, Dali Museum in Figueres, a boat trip in Blanes and a visit to Waterworld as a treat for the children. In Barcelona we visited the famous Nou Camp Football Stadium, its famous Cathedral, the steep hill of Montjuic, Las Ramblas and the Gothic Quarter. The Dali museum is named after Spain’s most renowned surrealist artist Salvador Dali. The boat trip operated along the famous Costa Brava coastline offering various ports of call. Waterworld is a large, fun-filled water park situated in ample grounds on the outskirts of Lloret de Mar with its main attraction being the only aquatic roller coaster in Europe!
We departed from Blanes on Friday evening August 22nd for our 27 hour journey home arriving in Derby late Saturday evening August 23rd.
Joseph Kupranec (Leader & Choreographer) 10/10/2003