Open Blues - Dance in Poland

August 29th - September 1st, 2024

Poland’s first blues dance event: food, parties, workshops, and live music. 100% DIY

About

Open Blues is a non-profit do-it-yourself festival. The main organisers deal with renting the venue, registrations, scheduling and some logistics, but music, workshops, cooking and merriment is crowdsourced! 

Why don’t we follow the usual workshop format and invite some star teachers and segregate dancer beginner to advanced?

The simple answer is this: There are hundreds of such events in Europe anyway and they are all very good in satisfying the need for top-down instruction (and we’ll have some star teachers at Open Blues too!). Yet, there is little horizontal and inter-community exchange outside of the social dance floor. Let’s fix this!

Whatever your dance passion is bring it to Open Blues, if you think it might enrich the community. You can request a very limited time frame (e.g. 30 minutes) or a bigger workshop (e.g. 90 minutes), you can lead it on your own or with your friends, with instruments or without, you can create a space for experimentation or give a traditional class etc.

Venue

Piotrowice Nyskie Palace is in Silesia. The nearest airports are Wrocław (PL), Ostrava (CZ), Pardubice (CZ), Katowice (PL), Brno (CZ). The nearest transportation hub is in Nysa, a 20 minute drive from the Palace.

Open Blues takes place at a beautiful and historically rich palace, which fell into disrepair during the Soviet rule over Poland 1945-89. It was bought by a Polish-British couple, Anna and Jim, who are now renovating it with much love. They make it available for visitors and cultural events. This unfinished palace is their home; a home they want to share. The palace has a raw feel that invites experimentation, so feel free to explore. However, remember to respect Anna’s and Jim’s privacy!

Here is what Anna & Jim have to say about their home:

The house dates from around 1300, but with a rebuild every 100 years or so, it’s hard to say which bit was built when. Architectural historians and archaeologists love the questions this building asks, and we don’t yet have all the answers. There are frescoes, glorious Renaissance painted ceilings, and sgraffito (a plaster technique). The working chapel (it’s the village church, Mass twice a week) has an impressive baroque altar-piece, recently restored.

In 2012, our on-going restoration was short-listed for a prestigious Europa Nostra/European Union Award for the Protection of Cultural Heritage (the only Polish project so honoured). There is still work in progress, so we didn’t win. Nonetheless, we are proud of getting close, and we love to talk about our Big House Project with guests. 

Food

We cook all of our food together. All food is vegan or vegetarian.

There is a small shop but no supermarket in the village, the nearest one is a 15 minutes drive away.

Schedule

Thursday
14-17 Registration, hangout and tasks (please eat/bring lunch)
18-21 Wine reception and Dinner
21-late Party

Friday
10-12 self-service breakfast
13-15 Brunch
19-20 Dinner
21-late Party

Saturday
10-12 self-service breakfast
13-15 Brunch
19-20 Dinner
21-late Party

Sunday
10-12 Brunch
12-16 Everyone cleans!
16 … goodbyes, chillout and afterparty

Financials

We run this non-profit. Our costs are roughly this:

Bands 15%
Food 37%
Venue 40%
Misc 8%
We try to have a 5-10% buffer which we reinvest into the next editions.

FAQ