YRTC Poland February2

Marta Wiśniewska professionally known as Mandaryna. She is the most popular dance music singer in Poland. A professional dancer since childhood. Marta started her career as a dancer and choreographer in Ich Troje ( Michał Wiśniewski’s band). She simultaneously graduated from stuntman school as well as actors college. In September 2007, Mandaryna opened her first Dance Studio with the headquarters in Warsaw suburb. The latest Mandaryna’s album was released in August 2009 after a year of preparations. It is uncovering revolutionary, genuine and fresh music talent and image of the artist The „AOK” album starts new era in Polish pop-dance music. Piotr Filipp: What is the cost of fame? What is the best and the worst thing of being famous person? Photo: Voyo Bakiewicz Voyo Bakiewicz z Mandaryna: It’s difficult question – untypical. Artists are also in celebrities’ group. We made some kind of limit how deep we allow paparazzi and photo reporters to enter into our lives. Celebrities have the right to keep their privacy. Unfortunately paparazzi sometimes don’t respect these rights. The worst thing is when you have to explain yourself from things you have never done. Sometimes I read articles about me in places I have never been! The positive aspects of being famous I can experience during gigs. People give me a lot of energy! Sometimes fame helps you also on the post office or in the restaurant. Few years ago I was able to avoid some punishments from policemen. (laugh)Unfortunately it’s a part of history. “I read articles about me in places I have never been!” Do paparazzi annoy you? Is there any way to fight with them? It’s difficult subject because without paparazzi we – celebrities – wouldn’t exist! Artists in contrast to actors have to appear in some tabloids. Without this “advertisements” people would know nothing about us and wouldn’t come for our gigs. Of course we made our own rules and some paparazzi broke it. If someone is a paparazzi who sits on your fence and follow you to toilet then I think that he is just a boor! They are trying to provoke some situations just to take a picture where you look really bad. We can fight with them judicially. What is more: We have to! What do you think about dealing with tabloids? I hate negotiations with terrorists - tabloids. When they make me feel I’ve got no choice it drives me mad! They usually call me and say that I have to co-operate. If not they suggest that they will take a picture I would never like. There are also some positive aspects of tabloids. You should learn how to play with them just like they’re playing with you! If you have story and you wanna appear in press Photo: Chicago Press you can call and deal with “When they make me them. Once I made up feel I’ve got no choice story and made photo session then I sold it to them. The whole story it drives me mad!” was untrue but I got popularity.  What about star’s friendships? In my case it was like: more famous you are less friends you’ve got. Right now I’ve got only family. They always help me and they instantly forget about arguments. For friends you have to find time. When you are famous it’s obvious that it’s difficult or impossible. People also don’t like that feeling that they are worse than you and what’s more important poorer. They are jealous. Everything is about money even in friendships. Recently you released a new album. What was you inspiration and motivation during recording? I have been waiting for this album “Everything is for 3 years. This CD is a little bit slower and it’s in disco, dance and about money even Hip-Hop style. - that’s all me! Since in friendships.” I was a young girl I was dancing Hip-Hop. Unfortunately in Poland appearance of club music is a little bit different so this album was very risky from commercial point of view. All in all I don’t wanna go back to the previous style from former albums. Generally music companies like interfering in the album style. Did you have this problem? With my new album I didn’t. It’s because I recorded this album in private studio and made video clip on my own. Company only helped me to distribute this material. If you haven’t got good background like recording studio you have to depend on company. If you depend on company they will interfere in your material. They cannot take a risk to make material which won’t be completely commercial. “…disco, dance and Photo: Voyo Bakiewicz Voyo Bakiewicz z Hip-Hop style. that’s all me!” Your album was supposed to be released in the USA. Was it? Not yet but we’re working on it. In the USA there’s a lot of Polish people. We’re planning to make a tour in USA and promote new album there. Right now we’ve got some gigs to perform in Germany and then we will see what to do next. Can radio stations have an influence on how the album finally looks like? Of course! The one who has power can dictate terms! The problem of polish artists is that they don’t appear on the radio stations. Kasia Klich started fighting with this problem. It’s a deal between companies and radio stations. It’s really difficult to enter into this commercial machine if you are not famous. Piotr Kupicha had this problem. Radio stations didn’t want his songs. Finally his video clip appeared on TV. Quickly all these stations asked him if they can play his songs! In videoclip AOK you used polish YouTube star Gracjan Roztocki. Where did this idea come from? It was producer’s idea. It is a funny accent. If you watch this clip quickly you won’t see him cause he has got similar hairstyle and color. “It’s a deal between companies and radio stations.”  You finished Culture Animation on TV and in the theater and then you studied at Machulski Actor University. Do you think about being a film star in the future? I used to play a little bit in episodes of some serials or sometimes in theater. Right now I’m thinking only about my singer career and Mandaryna Dance Studio. With Mandaryna Dance Studio you lead workshops and trainings with children and youth. How do you find yourself as an instructor in this environment? I love it! I treat children as if they were adult and think it’s my place in the future. They help me to relax and give me a lot of positive energy. When I have a bad day I just go for training and this awesome children give me so much energy. It doesn’t matter they sometimes dance not well and make a lot of mistakes. They are great all the time whatever they do. Photo: Mandaryna Dance Studio What are your plans about Mandaryna Dance Studio? “I think it’s my place in the future.” I want to open one more branch in Warsaw. I think we should invest in the youth and their skills. We’re new school and just started entering into some dance competitions. I think that it’s nice to enroll on our school right now. You can be a part of this growing big family. Your career is some kind of sinusoid – once you are on top once you fall down. What do you think it will look like in 5 years? “I don’t want to be on top…” (Laugh) I hope I will only go up. I want to evolve on the stage as a singer and also in Mandaryna Dance Studio as a leader and instructor. I don’t want to be on top cause I can fall down. I would like to find a place where I can stay without being afraid of my future. If you are on top there are always a lot of people who would like you to fall down and there’re doing everything to “help” you fall down. - Piotr Filipp -  EuroWeek EuroWeek Leader’s School is a polish project – training camp – which lasts 7 days. During these 7 days young people participate workshops with volunteers from European Union countries. This big project is developed by EFM (eng. European Forum of Youth). EFM is a non-profit organization which helps young people to improve some skills or help them to start EVS (European Volunteer Service). The camp is divided into some thematic blocks like: Leadership, Auto presentation, Culture Shock, Project Management, Stereotypes etc. I had an opportunity to participate this camp. Here is a short review. EuroWeek’s participants and volunteers Our adventure with Leader’s School started on 6th February and finished on 12th . Whole camp took place in Długopole Dolne – small village next to Kłodzko. We were living in Silesia hotel which had really good facilities. In the evening we were able to play billiard as long as we wanted. If you had had money you could have taken a sauna ( 15zł/person ). Food was quite good and you could eat as much as you wanted. Campmates were really cheerful and communicative same as volunteers from European Union. After 2 or maybe 3 days we started talking only in English because we got used to do it. Schedule We had a really tight schedule. We started workshops and presentations at 9.30am. We ate lunch at 1 pm and had a brake till 3-4 pm and then we got back to workshops. We finished workshops after dinner – at 6pm. Since then we have been playing billiard, talking or doing whatever we wanted till midnight. The workshops were really interesting for me. We have learnt an information which is really useful when you’re trying to get a job or you have an interview. We had a presentation about writing new EuroPass CV and Photo: Piotr Filipp Motivation Letter. Between these formal workshops we had presentations about European Union countries. Some of them were formal and serious but still interesting and some were really funny. It depends on person who prepared the presentation.  Workshops Role in a group. When you are looking for a job you have to realize what person you are. If you are Natural Leader you won’t feel comfortable as a developer. They gave us M. Balbin’s test which helps to find you what is your role in a group. Some of you have characters which allow you to have more than one role in a group. Oxford’s Debate These workshops were really interesting. We had to choose topic and then we were devided into two groups. One for and one against topic. Our topic was quite simple but it was really difficult to avoid arguments. The topic was: “White color is better than black one”. My team was for this topic and in my humble opinion we were right. Press Conference Next workshop caused a lot of arguments. My team thought out that we had succeed in creating a teleportation machine. Our opponents had to ask questions which were supposed to be uncomfortable for us. They had to confuse us – it was their main task. Fortunately they failed. We could take revenge on them during their Press Conference but they were really smart too. European Union We spent a lot of time listening to presentations about European Union projects. At schools they don’t mention about opportunities which European Union gives you! It’s incredible how many projects are available for young people. European Committee also allows you to prepare your own project and get some funds to do this project. After this camp I changed my point of view. Now I know that I can learn a lot with European Union projects. Turkish Presentation  Other Workshops In my opinion the Workshops, which I have already mentioned, were the most interesting. I would like to say that we had also workshops about: Public Relations (PR), Auto presentation, Culture Shock, Stereotypes, Project Management. Summary After 7 days I started thinking about my future in more international way. I also got interested in leaderships and project management. I’m thinking about some local projects and I hope that my schoolmates will help me with them. I’m not afraid of my future because I know that European Union helps youth. All participants also gained graduation certificate. - Piotr Filipp-