According to Polish tradition, a prosperous marriage begins with gifts of bread, salt, and wine, and dancing ensures happiness for the couple. For more than two decades, Cecylia Roznowska, a Polish-born dancer and choreographer, has been leading wedding dances and twirling Polish-American couples in a polonaise toward happily-ever-after. Since immigrating to Chicago in 1984, she is the founder and artistic director of the Northwest Center of Traditional Polish Dancing and the Polonia Ensemble, a youth folk dance company that performs at celebrations, festivals, parades, and—of course—weddings.
Dancing with the troupe's young people, including three of her own grandchildren, makes her feel like a girl again in the village of Rabka, learning the steps to the krakowiak and mazur. She can imagine that her stomach is full of her grandma's pierogi with sauerkraut, her pigtails flying, and her embroidered skirt whipping around her legs. When Ms. Roznowska is not dancing alongside her grandchildren, she is with them in the kitchen where she's taught them to make pacski doughnuts as well as these wonderful stuffed pancakes.
