The Adirondacks’ Largest Polka Festival Returns to Old Forge

by Niki Kourofsky

Before last year’s Old Forge Polka Festival, my exposure to that musical genre had been limited. (No, Poles do not pop out of the womb stepping to a lively two/four beat. At least not all of us.) My parents had a Polka Favorites album—tucked into a snazzy, multicolored jacket—that they never listened to. And once, at a family gathering, I stumbled around the floor with my father, earning a glare from my great-uncle Chick as he and his wife, Estelle, tried to twirl around the wreckage.

So I didn’t really know what to expect one May Saturday as I made my way to the Adirondacks’ largest and, at 13 years, longest running celebration of Eastern European folk dance. The parking lot wasn’t much of a surprise; a large number of American sedans, at least one with fuzzy dice, pointed to the, um, maturity of the congregants. The venue felt right, too: the dimly lit George T. Hiltebrant Recreation Center boasted cozy tables and an ice-rink-size dance floor for a crowd of about 500, plus frosty-mug balloons marking a corner bar. And the menu was predictable. For nine dollars I settled down with a “Polish Plate” from Christopher’s Catering, of New York Mills, near Utica: kielbasa, pierogies, a cabbage roll, sauerkraut and rye bread. If the number of pitchers around the place was any indication, draft beer paired nicely with the offerings.

But beyond the inevitable suds and sausage, I was in for some surprises. For one, unlike a lederhosen-laden Oktoberfest, this affair was costume-free. What’s more, a good percentage of the people in those perfectly normal clothes were shockingly un-Polish. “Polkas are universal,” said Ron Urbanczyk, the 58-year-old concertina player for the New Direction Band, from western New York.

What he didn’t say was that polka itself is shockingly un-Polish; it originated in Bohemia, which falls within the present-day Czech Republic. Although it’s been implied in some quarters that the Czechs merely popularized the dance after seeing a Polish woman perform it, most sources agree that Polish-American immigrants didn’t adopt the polka as their signature spin until the 20th century.

If I was a bit confused about where it came from, I was even more puzzled over what, exactly, the polka is. It didn’t help that the band onstage was belting out Elvis. Did adding an accordion to “Can’t Help Falling in Love” make it a polka?

No, it’s still a waltz, Urbanczyk explained. “A polka is two-quarter time; a waltz is three-quarter time.” After my blank look, and a change of tune, he swept me onto the floor to demonstrate. 

The basics—left, two, three; right, two, three—look easy enough, like skipping around in a giant circle. The pace, however, is more of a gallop, and the moves require coordination, especially if your partner adds in some twists and turns. Which Urbanczyk did, of course, just about every time I had settled into a passable rhythm.

“So, what’s up with the waltzes?” I asked Dennis Polisky, 50, of the Maestro’s Men, once he got offstage and I caught my breath.

“Some polka bands do only polka,” the International Polka Association Hall of Famer said, “but I try to read the crowd,” mixing in slower tunes for the older folks.

Elvis and oversize cars notwithstanding, the audience—from all over New York and beyond—was hardly geriatric. There was heavy traffic on the dance floor and a lively tailgate party out back, plus the promise of an afterhours jam session at Old Forge’s Water’s Edge Inn.

Gleaming saxes, silk shirts and Eddie Blazonczyk, a top dog from Chicago, preening onstage: it might not be the Lambada, but polka still has plenty of sex appeal. Not wanting me to feel left out, a sweet older lady—badly misjudging my age and marital status—offered to set me up with a fresh-faced bartender. I thanked her, but left the swinging to the couples circling the floor.

This year’s polka festival, sponsored by the Central Adirondack Association, happens May 29–30. For details and ticket prices see www.oldforgeny.com/documents/Adirflyer2010.pdf.