Day 5 - The rehearsals and performing on the stages.

                  Contemporary dance

We did the final rehearsal today and we had our presentantion on the stage. It was even better than we expected and everybody was impressed. The public loved us and it felt so great!

                  Greece team - presenting tango

The Greeks presented us their skills in dancing tango and we love it. They made a great performance and leaved us speechless. 

          Spanish group - rehearsals and performance on stage

The spanish had today their final rehearsals and their performance on tha stage. They were eager to go, and they were perfect, from the begging to the end, faultless.

Day 4 - Travelling and competitional day

          Melnik

We went to the smallest traditional town in Bulgaria, named Melnik. This town impressed us with its arhitecture and builduings from the 1800-1900, giving us a feeling that we travelled back in time.

We spent a few hours visiting, buying souvenirs, tasting wine and watching the ruines from big old builduings, or watching the actual builduings which were amazing.

           Traditional dance

In the afternoon we went back to Sandanski, rested for a bit and got ready for some more dancing. On the pictures below you can see the amazing folklore costumes of the Macedonian group. It takes them about one hour to put them on and get ready to dance :) the results are worth it!

We continued the tradition of Sandanski, in which two representives of each country had to come to a traditional dance competition, were everybody had to do the dance of all other countries and present their own in order to win. The winners had the chance to take part in the tradition of wine production - they danced in a bucket full of grapes in order to make them into wine.

           Intercultural night

After the dance competition, we went back to our hotel to host the intercultural night, where we presented our national goodies to other countries, showing them and telling them a little bit of history, how the food was created and with what purpose.

Day 3 - We took the stages.

        Creative dance workshops

Our dancers continued rehearsing the new choreographies that they were learning. They are improving quickly and we are looking forward to see them perform on the stage. Saturday we will see the contemporary dance group and Sunday - the hip-hop and traditional dance.

         Greece, Italy - rehearsal and performance on the stage of BYF

Greece and Italy got the chance to perform after their long hours of practicing and they were amazing, Great performance by our participants and the public was excited about what they saw.

         Romania, Macedonia - dance on the traditional stage

Romania and Macedonia danced on the traditional stage and impressed us with their traditional styles and beautiful costumes. We couldnot believe it when we learned that the clothes of one of the macedonian girls weighted about 20 kilos! The public was also impressed and shouting as a way to reward their effort.

         Balkan party in the club

After everything went great and everybody performed their parts, just as expected, we took the participants into a club, as a way to reward their hardwork and ensuring that they will have a night to party, here in Sandanski, Bulgaria.

Day 2 - attending the festival night

             Dance workshop

We started the day with dance workshops where everyone learned or improve their style with the help from experts and choreographers. At the end of the workshop we were very excited about the new moves that we learned.

            Non-formal education

Non-formal education, the type of education that you don't get a certificate for, but it will help you long-term. So, all being said, we spent a few hours "playing" with the non-formal education, different games of self-development and team work development.

 

           The Parade

We participated at the opening of Bulgarian Youth Festival by marching in the parade with participants, traditional dancers and young  devoted Bulgarians youngters which were lifting up the spirits and nationalism.

           Festival night

We attended the festival night where we saw a lot of talented performers, singers, dancers and a beautiful trumpets show. We felt really good and enjoyed the night. It was simply perfect. Outstanding performances from performancers.

Day 1 - introduction of the project and getting to know each others

          Presentation of  YES - Youth European Strategy 2016.

This year's YES PROJECT aims to promote dance as an non-formal education with dancers from Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Macedonia, Romania, Spain and Turkey. Their final objective will be to present a dance that they developed here, in Sandaski, Bulgaria on a stage of the Balkan Youth Festival.They will also create a database with games based on dance. They will share games that they already know and create new ones.

         Introducing our countries 

Group work :  The participants had the task to make a drawing of their country, how they want us to see or remember their country.   

Spanish team being very creative and inspired :)

 Turks doing a bridge that signify that they are the west and the east at the same time.

The Bulgarian team presenting roses and mountain tops :)

Our friends form Greece!

 The Romanian neighbor also told us many interesting facts about the Dracula !

Macedonian friends :)!

Italians drew their national sites - the Colloseum and their famous foods like pizza and pasta.

Different dance styles: They also had to promote their styles of dance, and all danced different styles, like the Turks did some hip-hop and teaching us a national dance of their, Romanians doing a national dance and inviting people to join them, the Spanish people also teached their national dance.

        Flash mob 

We went to see the flash mob orgnized by the volunteers of the BYF.

        Bulgarian Night:

We went out to an restaurant to celebrate the national holyday of Bulgaria, they were dancing national dances, trying to blend in or learn the dance, the fact that they didn't knew how to dance it was not so important. We all had a good time.