CIOFF^®

Members and delegates representing more than 100 groups and organizations from Poland elected new authorities during the 15th General Congress of Polish National Section of International Council of Organizations of Folklore Festivals and Folk Arts CIOFF®.
After 30 years of activity Mr. Jerzy Chmiel has become a honorary member of the organization. He was the President of PS CIOFF® (1992-2022) and former vice president of CIOFF® World (1991-2013). New presidium is the next good chapter in the future history of the Polish Section of CIOFF®
The 15th General Congress of PS CIOFF® was held from April 26 to April 28, 2022 at the premises of Polish National Song and Dance Ensemble "Slask" in Koszecin (Silesian Voivodeship). 47 delegates took part in the meeting. During special sessions they settled the terms of future goals of PS CIOFF®.
Polish Section of CIOFF® is one of the most recognizable folklore organization in Poland. We try to protect tangible and intangible heritage of polish dances, music, vocals and handicrafts tradition – Mr. Piotr Szewczyk, newly elected vice-president of PS CIOFF® explains.
Polish CIOFF® has organizational traditions starting from the very beginning of CIOFF® World. Mr. Michal Kosinski from Poland was one of the founders of the organization and the country was in the team of 11 first founder countries.
The new presidium includes:
Jan Losakiewicz - President (Warszawa)
Piotr Szewczyk – Vice-president (Myslenice)
Marcin Bochenek – Vice-president (Biala Podlaska)
Leszek Choluj - Treasurer (Katowice)
Bozena Baranowska - Secretary (Lublin)
Jan Galasinski - Member of the Presidium (Poznan)
Poland organizes 17 CIOFF® International Festivals which have good worldwide opinion. Currently the organization associates 102 folklore groups, 55 experts of regional dances and music, national dances and costumes.
author: Piotr Szewczyk, CIOFF® Poland
Photos: Wojciech Korpusik

Dear friends all over the world!

As Winston Churchill was working to form the United Nations after WWII, he famously said “Never let a good crisis go to waste”. That is also our plan - to gather the great things in the ICH field that have been done during the pandemic.

People sent in examples of best ICH practices during the pandemic and we have three presentation days - 27.03 6 pm CET (GMT +1) in French, 10.04 6 pm CET (GMT +1) in English and 24.04 4 pm (GMT -3) in Spanish.



The topics you will hear about:

- sharing, teaching or keeping ICH alive;

- keeping the groups alive;

- organising festivals during the pandemic.



The presentations will be shared on the Facebook page of CIOFF®: https://www.facebook.com/CIOFF.NGO

And later published to the Youtube page of CIOFF®.



Facebook event: https://fb.me/e/48ixYLDAL



The events are organized by the Cultural Commission of the International Council of Organizations of Folklore Festivals and Folk Arts (CIOFF®).

2021 has been an important year within the constant growth of CIOFF, both in the national sections and internationally.
We can be proud that CIOFF's accreditation with UNESCO for the Intangible Cultural Heritage ICH has been renewed for the next 4 years. This accreditation obtained in 2012, renewed every 4 years since then, is committed to the seriousness of CIOFF in promoting the ICH through its network of festivals and folk groups around the world.
The successes obtained both in the VI World Folkloriada in Bashkortostan (Russia), and in the world congress that we lived in Budapest - Hungary, invite us to move forward with hope and strength to continue building a promising present and future. We are aware that we must continue to maintain important care and protection in health matters in order to continue promoting peace through these important events. I am sure that we will continue to advance together with firm and safe steps! Likewise, the designation of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Russian Federation as the venue for the first CIOFF Children's Folkloriada in 2024, is a great challenge to which a great success is projected, such as it was for the world Folkloriada of July 2021!
On my behalf and on behalf of the members of the CIOFF World Council, please receive our sincere congratulations for this New Year and a fraternal hug.

Renewal of the accreditation given by UNESCO ICH to CIOFF® for another four years.
Announced by the president Philippe Beaussant.
Dear friends from CIOFF
We hope that you are doing well !
You all know that the 16th UNESCO ICH Committee met in Paris from 12 to 18 December;
For CIOFF it was very important to follow this meeting -online- because as you know we asked for the renewal of our accreditation!
we are happy to announce that today UNESCO ICH committee decided to prolong our accreditation for next 4 years.. ( We have it from 2012)
This is a great achievment for our organization and we are sure that our relation with UNESCO will even improve in the future !
Thanks to Magdalena Tovornik and Laura Lopez for their important work in this field and also thanks to those national sections which helped to fullfill the questionnaire !
We will present the whole reports on those meetings to all national sections during our next congress ;
- NGOs ICH Forum meetings and - UNESCO ICH committee meetings
Wishing you all the best ! take care of you !
KInd regards,
Magdalena Tovornik - Philippe Beaussant

The ICH-NGO Forum has launched the new edition of the Live Heritage Series, this time on traditional musical instruments. CIOFF® is present again with an article about furruco and cirrampla instruments in Colombia, which you can read in link below.

Eivind Falk, Editor-In-Chief – #HeritageAlive:

The #HeritageAlive in cooperation with ICHCAP, are proud to present our new publication, a new book in the Living Heritage Series – Traditional Musical Instruments: Sharing Experiences from the field.

#HeritageAlive is one of the ICH NGO Forum’s many wonderful activities. First time #HeritageAlive joined forces with ICHCAP, was the publication of Traditional Medicine in 2017, and in 2019 we made a book on traditional food. This book, with the topic Traditional musical instruments, was made with contributions of fifteen writers, representing different NGOs, from countries across the globe. The authors describe the current status of traditional musical traditions and provide insight in safeguarding activities of these traditions in the spirit of the 2003 Convention. The main project has been to share safeguarding experiences, methodology and activities, among us who are working in the field, with the communities concerned, craftsmen, musicians, bearers and practitioners.

Nevertheless we considered that it would be almost impossible to give a fair impression for understanding the musical instruments from text only. We wanted to listen to the sound of the musical instruments, in order to get a better and more fair impression. Therefor we decided to add a playlist, made available online. In this way, we can listen to sample of music referring to each chapter. The book is available for downloading as a pdf, or can be ordered as a hard copy from ICHCAP.

Let me thank the authors for their wonderful contributions, the musicians that have contributed to our playlist, the always hardworking editorial board, in particular Antoine Gauthier, and our great colleagues at ICHCAP, Seong-Yong Park and his team, which has made this publication possible. Thanks a lot!
Eivind Falk
(Editor-In-Chief – #HeritageAlive)