SIEMIENIEC — performative lecture, ritual exercises and ritual practices

It is an encounter in three episodes that complement each other, explain and simply best live it in its entirety. Maciej Filipczuk invites you to a performative lecture, during which he will present the results of his research on the semieńec — a ceremonial dance with a magical and agrarian character, performed in the spring or on Ash Wednesday. The second stage of the meeting is a short dance workshop, while the last, culminating moment of the day will be a joint fun to the music played live by the Ritual Collective.

Siemieniec was a parade dance of young men, performed with closed doors and shuttered windows. It had the characteristics of a suffocating rite, a male initiation, a matrimonial market, a dance to harvest cannabis, and sometimes plain fun.

As part of the Scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, I dealt with this ancient rite and the music associated with it, and I would like to share the results of my research with you in the form of a performative lecture. I try to reconstruct in order to recognize the forms of dance and understand the symbolism and meanings inscribed in the old Semenets celebrations.

In this attempt, it is impossible to ignore the much broader context of the undergrowth, in which the rite of the seed is one of many essential elements of a ritual-magical nature. The cyclicality of time, the roles we accept or reject, changes in status, acceptance in the cluster, the presence of strangers and masquerade in the period of infancy, the ritual uproar and anti-music, the pot-goat, and finally the seed itself, will be the subject of my reflections and questions about what we understand from the rite today and what can still be alive and current.

I invite you to an event where there will be a place to summarize the theory and the knowledge I have gathered, but also for practical participation. I hope that the lecture, exercises and fun — as a whole — will allow us to gain a new perspective and deeply, jointly and separately experience SIEMIEŃEC

— invites Maciej Filipczuk.

I — Siemieniec — performative lecture | Maciej Filipczuk

When: November 29, 2026 (Sunday), 18.00-19.00

Where: Culture Workshops in Lublin, 5a Grodzka Street, auditorium, 2nd floor

For whom: for adults

Admission: free, limited number of places, order of arrival decides

It was realized as part of a scholarship from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage.

II — Siemieniec — dance workshops | Kolektyw Obrędowy

When: November 29, 2026 (Sunday), 7:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

For whom: for adults participating in an earlier lecture

III — Siemienc fun | Kolektyw Orzedowy

When: November 29, 2026 (Sunday), 7.30 p.m.

Where: Małagan, ul. Grodzka 5a

Admission is free

The Ritual Collective will play for the seed fun, consisting of:

prof. Osieł — violin

The Devil — Second Violin

DUŻY ZAPUST — bass