Figure 1.--The Park Secondary School in Dagenham had an active dance program, endowed by the Ford Foundation. This was the Polish dance team in 1961.

We know little about Polish gfolk dancing. At his time we know nothing about folish folk dancing in Poland. Until 1919, Poland was under te control of Austria, Germany, and Russia. The language, culture, and other national aspirations were supressed to varying degrees by those empires. We are not sure to what extent this extended to folk culture like dancing. After 1919 the Polish government presumably promoted folk culture like dancing, but again we have few details. The NAZIs tried even more viciously to stamp out Polish cultural traditions, including music and dance. Persumably these were revived by both the Communist Government installed by the Soviets and todays democrtaic government. Hopefully one of our Polish readers will provide us some background information. Poland appears to have a Polish State Folk Song and Dance Ensemble called Mazowsze, but we do not know to whay extent their is a youth dance program in Poland. We do not know, for example, if there were school programs. Much of the limited information we have comes from Polish dance groups in the various countries to which Poles have migrated such as Australia, Canada, the United States, and many other countries. Often Polish churches played an important role in maintaining traditional custons in immigrant communityies. We note that Park Secondary School in Dagenham, England had a dance program. It was apparently promoted by the Ford Foundation. We do not know if the members were of Polish extraction or how common such programs were in Britain.