Academic literature on the topic 'POLISH ART OF DANCE'

Since 1964, the Institute of Musicology of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts has been cherishing the official archive of the academician Ljubica Jankovic, ethnochoreologist, which originates from her service at the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade (1939-1951). The legacy contains documentation about the activity of the Folk Dance Section of the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade, and extensive data on folk dances in Yugoslavia from the first half of the twentieth century. This paper presents part of the archival documentation relating to the establishment and activity of the Folk Dance Section. It was the first state institution to collect primary and secondary research sources relating to folk dance structure and to the social context of a rural dance practice. Apart from that, it was the institution for education on folk dance preservation and staging. The focus of the paper is on the fundamental documents of ethnochoreological cultural and research policy in Serbia, manuscripts The Draft for Work at the Folk Dance Section of the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade [Nacrt za rad u Otseku narodnih igara pri Etnografskom muzeju u Beogradu] (1939) and The Program for Work at the Department for Intangible Culture with the Sections: 1) Folk Dances and Folk Music; 2) Folk Literature; 3) Folk Art and Ornamentation; 4) Folk Customs and Religion; 5) Folk Medicine [Program rada u Odeljenju za duhovnu kulturu sa Otsecima: 1) za narodne igre i narodnu muziku; 2) za narodnu knjizevnost; 3) za narodnu likovnu umetnost i ornamentiku; 4) za narodne obicaje i veru; 5) za narodnu medicinu] (1946). The aim of this study is to contribute to the history of ethnochoreology in Serbia by introducing the ideas of Ljubica Jankovic concerning folk dance research and preservation strategies because of their importance for the interpretation of numerous ethnochoreological and ethnomusicological theoretical and analytical results, mostly achieved in cooperation with her sister, Danica Jankovic. In addition, we indicate the applicability of the first official ethnochoreological ideas for current folk dance research in Serbia.

Jacek Jackowski is a musician and ethnomusicologist, and the head of the Phonographic Collection at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He specializes in the conservation, digitization and archiving of old sound recordings. He is a field researcher and author of many academic articles on traditional, Catholic and folk religious culture associated with musical behaviours. He also published numerous articles and books on early folk music recordings and their digitization (Zachować dawne nagrania, Warszawa 2014; Polska muzyka tradycyjna – dziedzictwo fonograficzne, t. 1, Warszawa 2017; t. 2, Warszawa 2019), as well as 17 CD albums of folk songs and music from Kashubia, Kurpie, Podhale, Łowicz, Orava, South Wielkopolska and many other regions of Poland. Since 2014 he has been managing the Etnofon project, the goal of which is to create, develop and maintain a central digital repository of documentary phonographic and film recordings capturing Polish traditional songs and music as well as folk dance.

The Saman dance or better known as the thousand-hand dance is one of the cultural heritages of the Indonesian nation which has been passed down from generation to generation as the pride of the Gayo people. This Saman Gayo dance has been recognized and confirmed by the United Nations Educational and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as an intangible world cultural heritage on November 24, 2011 in Bali. Saman Dance is one of the tourism attractions in Gayo Lues Regency. The Government of Gayo Lues Regency incorporates Saman Dance into the school curriculum, forms a guided Saman group and becomes a facilitator for increasing the development of cultural arts so that it develops into a cultural icon and can be used as a source of local revenue. Community involvement makes Saman Dance a cultural icon is that people love this art and it has become a hereditary tradition that should not be left behind or lost altogether. This art can be witnessed in the context of performances as entertainment at the time of celebration of national holidays, religious and grand guest banquets. The data were interviewed, and the research method used was descriptive with qualitative analysis. The results showed that Saman Dance and tourism development contributed to regional development in Gayo Lues Regency. The way to make it happen is to become a tourism facilitator who creates a conducive climate, build an airport or other infrastructure to make it easier for tourists to travel and promote existing tourism potential through a tagline. The efforts of the Gayo Lues Regency Government and the community to support the implementation of the Saman Dance conservation policy as a tourism potential are to directly involve competent people in the preparation of the program so that the results are of high quality. Keywords: Saman Dance Potential, Development, Society.

Abstract The topic of this article is Eugeniusz Morawski’s ballet music analysed in the context of the search for national identity in Poland after it regained independence in 1918. The author’s reflection is focused on two fully preserved ballet compositions written in the 1920s. In the monumental four-part dance poem Miłość [Love] by Morawski, together with the author of the libretto, Franciszek Siedlecki, presents an allegorical journey of the pair of protagonists in search of spiritual renewal in a world threatened by progressive mechanisation. Their pilgrimage ends on Earth, and Mazurka is the central point of the last part of the composition. The two-part ballet Świtezianka [Fair Maiden from Svitez], written by the composer to his own libretto, contains in the first part a group scene in which the composer stylizes Polish folk dances. Morawski uses in these works numerous archaizing elements, such as col legno articulation in the strings or empty fifths in the bass; he also uses a pentatonic scale and modal scales, these fragments are distinguished by incisive rhythms. The composer’s treatment of folk material brings to mind an analogy between his work and the works of composers regarded as representatives of the national-folkloric trend in Polish music: Karol Szymanowski, Stanisław Wiechowicz and Roman Palester. Similar tendencies can also be observed in numerous literary and art works created during the inter-war period. A return to folklore and combination of its elements with modern composing techniques can also be found in the works of the most ou-standing representatives of the avant-garde: Igor Stravinsky and Béla Bartók.

The community dance movement in the United Kingdom has been very active in organizing and delivering dance projects for disenfranchised communities and individuals for several decades. But initiatives have gained momentum following a shift in policy for arts funding after the 1997 General Election. This article examines how dance social-inclusion projects seek not only to allow those excluded from mainstream opportunities to participate in dance, but also to empower them. The aim of the paper is critically to examine these aims while acknowledging the work that the dance community has done in welcoming participation from groups traditionally not associated with the art form. Sara Houston firstly sets the political and social context that welcomes notions of empowerment to take root within arts projects, then goes on to debate what practitioners mean by the term within the context of championing a social inclusion policy, and discusses how examples of claims manifest themselves in practice, if they do at all. She examines one three-year initiative for residents of a sheltered housing unit and an eighteen-month project in an adult male maximum security prison, outlining what the projects offered and considering the limits of recording evidence of empowerment. Sara Houston lectures in the Department of Dance Studies at the University of Surrey. Her work on social inclusion initiatives in dance has been published by Animated, Primary Health Care, and has also been utilized in a Government White Paper.

This study sought to provide insight into how art activities influence the well-being of long-term care residents, and how artists and caregivers collaborate in offering these activities. In two long-term care facilities for people with dementia and one for older people with chronic psychiatric disorders, an uncontrolled pre- and post-test study was conducted using a mixed-method design. Forty-six residents participated in the study. Three art activities—(a) dance, (b) music and movement, and (c) visual arts—were studied and co-created with the residents and executed by artists and caregivers together in eight to ten weeks. The Face expression scale (FACE) was used to examine the extent to which participating in the art activity influenced resident mood. Qualitative data were collected via group discussions with artists, caregivers, residents, and an informal caregiver. The results indicated that participating in an art activity positively influenced resident mood (p < 0.000). p-values for the three art activities were: p < 0.000 for dance, p = 0.048 for music and movement, and p = 0.023 for visual arts. The qualitative data revealed that joining an art activity provided a positive effect, increased social relationships, and improved self-esteem for residents. The collaboration between artists and caregivers stimulated creativity, beauty, and learning from each other, as well as evoking emotions.

Abstract:This article analyzes drafts put forth by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to examine the gaps that are created when institutions attempt to assign authorship of traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions to individuals and communities and how these gaps impact the use of folkloric dance in cultural institutions. The analysis produced via anthropological mappings of policy is underpinned with an examination of terminologies that circulate between fields of discourse, spiraling their way into public policies concerning marginalized peoples’ rights, economies of art, and intellectual property. This is followed by ethnographic accounts of Afro-Cuban folkloric dance classes, for it is in the dancing bodies that gaps between policies of authorship and the reality of unstable streams of transmission and reception materialize. By reproducing and circulating these unstable streams, combined with various legal doctrines put forth by WIPO, cultural institutions appropriate Afro-Cuban folkloric dance to commodify individuals and communities.

Ate9 Dance Company’s Kelev Lavan raised questions about the politics of individualism and the neutrality of whiteness in art, during a period of acute social tension surrounding police violence against people of color in the US. Issues of technique, aesthetics, and the invisibilization of identity politics are explored in the context of this site-specific performance.

The relevance of the research lies in the search for a solution to the problem of the plasticchoreographic image of the work, the peculiarities of the interpretation of dance in the process of the formation of the Ukrainian national opera school, taking into account the author's intention, its rethinking in the realities of our time. Scientific novelty lies in the definition of conceptual approaches to the genre-style interpretation of dance scenes in Ukrainian opera in accordance with the theatrical aesthetics of a particular time. The purpose of the publication is to determine the evolutionary modifications of the solution of plastic-choreographic scenes of musical and theatrical works in accordance with the aesthe-tic concepts of different stages of the formation of the Ukrainian national opera school. Research methods. In the context of an integrated intersectoral approach at the junction of philosophy, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, musicology and theatre studies, comparative and art history research methods are chosen as determinants. Their use makes it possible to determine the similarity and difference between genre-style interpretations of dance scenes in accordance with the theatrical aesthetics of a particular time. The main results and conclusions of the study. The article examines the process of formation of dance scenes in the historical context of the development of the Ukrainian opera school. The features of the use of dance at different stages of the formation of the national repertoire in various configurations of the Ukrainian musical theatre from its origins to the present day are outlined. The fundamental principles of the interpretation of dance in Ukrainian opera, laid down in the predecessors of the national musical theatre – old games, a puppet nativity scene, baroque school drama, palace theatres of Ukrainian, Polish, Russian magnates of the era of classicism, are character-rized. The evolutionary modifications of the plastic-choreographic solution of opera performances against the background of the genesis of the Ukrainian musical theatre are analyzed. The well-established key approaches to the interpretation of dance scenes in the Ukrainian opera are determined, mainly the positive role of choreography in solving the musical drama of the performance. The author highlights the differences between Ukrainian opera content and Western European and Russian traditions, where vocals as the personification of a person's soul or the image of a friend, and dance as the embodiment of temptations or the image of an enemy are quite often in opposition to each other. The specificity of the interpretation of dance in the Ukrainian opera through the prism of its historical formation is clarified: from the use of divertissement samples of the times of classicism through illustrative and pictorial eras of romanticism, efficiently expressive epochs of realism and Soviet reality to conventionally symbolic, conventionally abstract in the culture of modernity and postmodernism. Different approaches to the solution of dance in opera performances in evacuation and in the occupied territories with distinction in the East and West of Ukraine have been established. The conceptual approaches of the genre-style interpretation of dance scenes in the Ukrainian opera are revealed in accordance with the theatrical aesthetics of a particular time. Attention is focused on the prospects for the emergence of new genre-stylistic forms with the gravitation of their plastic-choreographic solution to neosyncretism.

This dossier opens up a set of questions about what theatre and performance can do and be in a climate-changed future. Through a series of practice snapshots the authors suggest a diversity of responses to decolonizing and environmental justice issues in and through theatre and performance. These practices include the climate-fiction film The Wandering Earth, which prompts questions about what decolonizing means for China and the impact of climate chaos on the mental well-being of young people; The Living Pavilion, an Australian Indigenous-led project that created a biodiverse event space showcasing Indigenous art making; Dancing Earth Indigenous dance company who use dance as a way to engage Indigenous ecological thinking and Indigenous futurity; water rituals in the Andes of Peru that problematize water policy and ethnic boundaries.

x, 83 p. : col. ill.<br>A growing body of research documents the benefits of learning in and through the arts, from academic achievement to personal efficacy. Federal law recognizes the arts as a core subject area for K-12 public schools, and Oregon content standards articulate sequential expectations of what all students should know and be able to do in the disciplines of music, theater, dance, and visual arts. Despite these statutory commitments, little is known about the actual condition of arts education in Oregon public schools. This study mines existing data from the Oregon Department of Education to: 1) establish baseline measures of access to arts education during the 2009-2010 academic year; and 2) identify relationships between access and other school characteristics such as geographic location, school type, and Title I designation. This study's findings hold significant implications for state policy, and its unique methodology can inform the wider field of arts education policy research.<br>Committee in charge: Dr. Jean Stockard, Chair; Dr. Terri Ward, Member; Dr. Lori Hager, Member

The Art and Craft of Aerial Dance discusses my personal experiences training and performing aerial dance, along with my study of safe practices in aerial rigging. My journey as a Theatre and Dance Honors-In-Discipline Scholar at East Tennessee State University from 2016-2020, culminated with my senior thesis capstone performance at Azure Aerial Arts on Friday, December 6th, 2019. This exploration into the world of aerial dance began in the spring of 2017 and has not ceased. If anything, the drive and motivation to continue pushing forward despite many obstacles continues to grow and manifest itself into new forms in my life. This drive, and my work as an intern with Night Owl Circus Arts (NOCA) at Azure Aerial Arts over the summer of 2019, propelled me to choose this topic as my final thesis because of all of my accomplishments at ETSU, this is one that I hold nearest and dearest to my heart.

Art and Dance: Sediments, Segments, and Movement (A&D) is a series of photographs that studies dance movement, with the added element of flour to exaggerate and exhibit motion. A&D captures the different styles of dance out of their usual context, so that the actual movement becomes the central focus. This paper on the other hand provides the academic foundation for the artwork. It traces the history of dance photography as a genre. It not only sheds light on the photographic techniques that were used, but also how dance photography has evolved as an art form in its own right. The paper also presents my inspiration for the project and explains how those sources have influenced my images.

Philosophy<br>Ph.D.<br>This dissertation is an attempt to articulate the conviction, born of ten years of intensive experience in learning and practicing to be a dance performer, that the dance performer, through collaboration with the choreographer, makes an important contribution to how we can and do understand artistic dance performance. Further, this contribution involves on-the-fly-thinking-while-doing in which the movement of the dancer's body is run through by consciousness. Some of this activity of "consciousness" in movement may not be part of the deliberative mentality of which the agent is aware; it may instead be something that is part of our body's natural and acquired plan for how to move in the world that is shaped by years of artistic and cultural training and practice. The result is a qualitative and visceral performance that can, although need not, be a representation of some deliberative thought or intention that a dancer can articulate beforehand. It is also the sort of thinking movement that in many cases can be conceived as expression; an utterance of dance artists that is not limited to the communication of emotion that can be appreciated and understood, at least in principle, by a public or audience. What this means for the Philosophy of Dance as Art includes the following: 1) there may not always be a stable, fixed "work" of dance art that can be identified, going forward, as the only relevant work on which critical and philosophical attention should be focused because of variable, contingent and irreducibly individual features of live dance performances, attributable in large part to the efforts, style and improvisation of particular dance performers; 2) the experience of dance artists is relevant to understand dance as art because experiential evidence of practice can supplement and ground the appreciable properties that we can detect in artistic dance performances; 3) artistic dance performance can be conceived as expression without being expressive of either an artist's felt emotion or of human emotion in general - no particular content is needed as long as there is a content; 4) artistic dance performance conceived as expression can, but need not, function as representation in both the strong (imitative) and weak (referential) sense; and 5) artistic dance performance is real, not illusory and not necessarily either a transformation or transfiguration of the real. Dance as art, like theatre, like music and even, perhaps, like painting, sculpture and architecture, although in less clearly artist-present, extemporaneous and embodied ways, is human-constructed, human-understood, human-driven and a full, rich, interactive and meaningful part of human life.<br>Temple University--Theses

The discussion over whether arts education has an impact on social responsibility has been an interesting field of investigation in the educational realm. Although there still remains a dearth of information surrounding this issue, past research in the field has shed light on the importance of art and aesthetic education. Building upon prior research, this study offers a critical investigation into issues linking social responsibility and arts and aesthetic education. At the core of this study, through the use of a phenomenological framework, insight was offered into whether students' perceptions of a dance program in one British Columbia school assisted them in constructing a more advanced notion of their role in social responsibility. The overall results suggest that the participants believe that the dance program has assisted them in understanding and fulfilling their role in being socially responsible.

1.1 Macroeconomic summary Economic recovery has consistently outperformed the technical staff’s expectations following a steep decline in activity in the second quarter of 2020. At the same time, total and core inflation rates have fallen and remain at low levels, suggesting that a significant element of the reactivation of Colombia’s economy has been related to recovery in potential GDP. This would support the technical staff’s diagnosis of weak aggregate demand and ample excess capacity. The most recently available data on 2020 growth suggests a contraction in economic activity of 6.8%, lower than estimates from January’s Monetary Policy Report (-7.2%). High-frequency indicators suggest that economic performance was significantly more dynamic than expected in January, despite mobility restrictions and quarantine measures. This has also come amid declines in total and core inflation, the latter of which was below January projections if controlling for certain relative price changes. This suggests that the unexpected strength of recent growth contains elements of demand, and that excess capacity, while significant, could be lower than previously estimated. Nevertheless, uncertainty over the measurement of excess capacity continues to be unusually high and marked both by variations in the way different economic sectors and spending components have been affected by the pandemic, and by uneven price behavior. The size of excess capacity, and in particular the evolution of the pandemic in forthcoming quarters, constitute substantial risks to the macroeconomic forecast presented in this report. Despite the unexpected strength of the recovery, the technical staff continues to project ample excess capacity that is expected to remain on the forecast horizon, alongside core inflation that will likely remain below the target. Domestic demand remains below 2019 levels amid unusually significant uncertainty over the size of excess capacity in the economy. High national unemployment (14.6% for February 2021) reflects a loose labor market, while observed total and core inflation continue to be below 2%. Inflationary pressures from the exchange rate are expected to continue to be low, with relatively little pass-through on inflation. This would be compatible with a negative output gap. Excess productive capacity and the expectation of core inflation below the 3% target on the forecast horizon provide a basis for an expansive monetary policy posture. The technical staff’s assessment of certain shocks and their expected effects on the economy, as well as the presence of several sources of uncertainty and related assumptions about their potential macroeconomic impacts, remain a feature of this report. The coronavirus pandemic, in particular, continues to affect the public health environment, and the reopening of Colombia’s economy remains incomplete. The technical staff’s assessment is that the COVID-19 shock has affected both aggregate demand and supply, but that the impact on demand has been deeper and more persistent. Given this persistence, the central forecast accounts for a gradual tightening of the output gap in the absence of new waves of contagion, and as vaccination campaigns progress. The central forecast continues to include an expected increase of total and core inflation rates in the second quarter of 2021, alongside the lapse of the temporary price relief measures put in place in 2020. Additional COVID-19 outbreaks (of uncertain duration and intensity) represent a significant risk factor that could affect these projections. Additionally, the forecast continues to include an upward trend in sovereign risk premiums, reflected by higher levels of public debt that in the wake of the pandemic are likely to persist on the forecast horizon, even in the context of a fiscal adjustment. At the same time, the projection accounts for the shortterm effects on private domestic demand from a fiscal adjustment along the lines of the one currently being proposed by the national government. This would be compatible with a gradual recovery of private domestic demand in 2022. The size and characteristics of the fiscal adjustment that is ultimately implemented, as well as the corresponding market response, represent another source of forecast uncertainty. Newly available information offers evidence of the potential for significant changes to the macroeconomic scenario, though without altering the general diagnosis described above. The most recent data on inflation, growth, fiscal policy, and international financial conditions suggests a more dynamic economy than previously expected. However, a third wave of the pandemic has delayed the re-opening of Colombia’s economy and brought with it a deceleration in economic activity. Detailed descriptions of these considerations and subsequent changes to the macroeconomic forecast are presented below. The expected annual decline in GDP (-0.3%) in the first quarter of 2021 appears to have been less pronounced than projected in January (-4.8%). Partial closures in January to address a second wave of COVID-19 appear to have had a less significant negative impact on the economy than previously estimated. This is reflected in figures related to mobility, energy demand, industry and retail sales, foreign trade, commercial transactions from selected banks, and the national statistics agency’s (DANE) economic tracking indicator (ISE). Output is now expected to have declined annually in the first quarter by 0.3%. Private consumption likely continued to recover, registering levels somewhat above those from the previous year, while public consumption likely increased significantly. While a recovery in investment in both housing and in other buildings and structures is expected, overall investment levels in this case likely continued to be low, and gross fixed capital formation is expected to continue to show significant annual declines. Imports likely recovered to again outpace exports, though both are expected to register significant annual declines. Economic activity that outpaced projections, an increase in oil prices and other export products, and an expected increase in public spending this year account for the upward revision to the 2021 growth forecast (from 4.6% with a range between 2% and 6% in January, to 6.0% with a range between 3% and 7% in April). As a result, the output gap is expected to be smaller and to tighten more rapidly than projected in the previous report, though it is still expected to remain in negative territory on the forecast horizon. Wide forecast intervals reflect the fact that the future evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic remains a significant source of uncertainty on these projections. The delay in the recovery of economic activity as a result of the resurgence of COVID-19 in the first quarter appears to have been less significant than projected in the January report. The central forecast scenario expects this improved performance to continue in 2021 alongside increased consumer and business confidence. Low real interest rates and an active credit supply would also support this dynamic, and the overall conditions would be expected to spur a recovery in consumption and investment. Increased growth in public spending and public works based on the national government’s spending plan (Plan Financiero del Gobierno) are other factors to consider. Additionally, an expected recovery in global demand and higher projected prices for oil and coffee would further contribute to improved external revenues and would favor investment, in particular in the oil sector. Given the above, the technical staff’s 2021 growth forecast has been revised upward from 4.6% in January (range from 2% to 6%) to 6.0% in April (range from 3% to 7%). These projections account for the potential for the third wave of COVID-19 to have a larger and more persistent effect on the economy than the previous wave, while also supposing that there will not be any additional significant waves of the pandemic and that mobility restrictions will be relaxed as a result. Economic growth in 2022 is expected to be 3%, with a range between 1% and 5%. This figure would be lower than projected in the January report (3.6% with a range between 2% and 6%), due to a higher base of comparison given the upward revision to expected GDP in 2021. This forecast also takes into account the likely effects on private demand of a fiscal adjustment of the size currently being proposed by the national government, and which would come into effect in 2022. Excess in productive capacity is now expected to be lower than estimated in January but continues to be significant and affected by high levels of uncertainty, as reflected in the wide forecast intervals. The possibility of new waves of the virus (of uncertain intensity and duration) represents a significant downward risk to projected GDP growth, and is signaled by the lower limits of the ranges provided in this report. Inflation (1.51%) and inflation excluding food and regulated items (0.94%) declined in March compared to December, continuing below the 3% target. The decline in inflation in this period was below projections, explained in large part by unanticipated increases in the costs of certain foods (3.92%) and regulated items (1.52%). An increase in international food and shipping prices, increased foreign demand for beef, and specific upward pressures on perishable food supplies appear to explain a lower-than-expected deceleration in the consumer price index (CPI) for foods. An unexpected increase in regulated items prices came amid unanticipated increases in international fuel prices, on some utilities rates, and for regulated education prices. The decline in annual inflation excluding food and regulated items between December and March was in line with projections from January, though this included downward pressure from a significant reduction in telecommunications rates due to the imminent entry of a new operator. When controlling for the effects of this relative price change, inflation excluding food and regulated items exceeds levels forecast in the previous report. Within this indicator of core inflation, the CPI for goods (1.05%) accelerated due to a reversion of the effects of the VAT-free day in November, which was largely accounted for in February, and possibly by the transmission of a recent depreciation of the peso on domestic prices for certain items (electric and household appliances). For their part, services prices decelerated and showed the lowest rate of annual growth (0.89%) among the large consumer baskets in the CPI. Within the services basket, the annual change in rental prices continued to decline, while those services that continue to experience the most significant restrictions on returning to normal operations (tourism, cinemas, nightlife, etc.) continued to register significant price declines. As previously mentioned, telephone rates also fell significantly due to increased competition in the market. Total inflation is expected to continue to be affected by ample excesses in productive capacity for the remainder of 2021 and 2022, though less so than projected in January. As a result, convergence to the inflation target is now expected to be somewhat faster than estimated in the previous report, assuming the absence of significant additional outbreaks of COVID-19. The technical staff’s year-end inflation projections for 2021 and 2022 have increased, suggesting figures around 3% due largely to variation in food and regulated items prices. The projection for inflation excluding food and regulated items also increased, but remains below 3%. Price relief measures on indirect taxes implemented in 2020 are expected to lapse in the second quarter of 2021, generating a one-off effect on prices and temporarily affecting inflation excluding food and regulated items. However, indexation to low levels of past inflation, weak demand, and ample excess productive capacity are expected to keep core inflation below the target, near 2.3% at the end of 2021 (previously 2.1%). The reversion in 2021 of the effects of some price relief measures on utility rates from 2020 should lead to an increase in the CPI for regulated items in the second half of this year. Annual price changes are now expected to be higher than estimated in the January report due to an increased expected path for fuel prices and unanticipated increases in regulated education prices. The projection for the CPI for foods has increased compared to the previous report, taking into account certain factors that were not anticipated in January (a less favorable agricultural cycle, increased pressure from international prices, and transport costs). Given the above, year-end annual inflation for 2021 and 2022 is now expected to be 3% and 2.8%, respectively, which would be above projections from January (2.3% and 2,7%). For its part, expected inflation based on analyst surveys suggests year-end inflation in 2021 and 2022 of 2.8% and 3.1%, respectively. There remains significant uncertainty surrounding the inflation forecasts included in this report due to several factors: 1) the evolution of the pandemic; 2) the difficulty in evaluating the size and persistence of excess productive capacity; 3) the timing and manner in which price relief measures will lapse; and 4) the future behavior of food prices. Projected 2021 growth in foreign demand (4.4% to 5.2%) and the supposed average oil price (USD 53 to USD 61 per Brent benchmark barrel) were both revised upward. An increase in long-term international interest rates has been reflected in a depreciation of the peso and could result in relatively tighter external financial conditions for emerging market economies, including Colombia. Average growth among Colombia’s trade partners was greater than expected in the fourth quarter of 2020. This, together with a sizable fiscal stimulus approved in the United States and the onset of a massive global vaccination campaign, largely explains the projected increase in foreign demand growth in 2021. The resilience of the goods market in the face of global crisis and an expected normalization in international trade are additional factors. These considerations and the expected continuation of a gradual reduction of mobility restrictions abroad suggest that Colombia’s trade partners could grow on average by 5.2% in 2021 and around 3.4% in 2022. The improved prospects for global economic growth have led to an increase in current and expected oil prices. Production interruptions due to a heavy winter, reduced inventories, and increased supply restrictions instituted by producing countries have also contributed to the increase. Meanwhile, market forecasts and recent Federal Reserve pronouncements suggest that the benchmark interest rate in the U.S. will remain stable for the next two years. Nevertheless, a significant increase in public spending in the country has fostered expectations for greater growth and inflation, as well as increased uncertainty over the moment in which a normalization of monetary policy might begin. This has been reflected in an increase in long-term interest rates. In this context, emerging market economies in the region, including Colombia, have registered increases in sovereign risk premiums and long-term domestic interest rates, and a depreciation of local currencies against the dollar. Recent outbreaks of COVID-19 in several of these economies; limits on vaccine supply and the slow pace of immunization campaigns in some countries; a significant increase in public debt; and tensions between the United States and China, among other factors, all add to a high level of uncertainty surrounding interest rate spreads, external financing conditions, and the future performance of risk premiums. The impact that this environment could have on the exchange rate and on domestic financing conditions represent risks to the macroeconomic and monetary policy forecasts. Domestic financial conditions continue to favor recovery in economic activity. The transmission of reductions to the policy interest rate on credit rates has been significant. The banking portfolio continues to recover amid circumstances that have affected both the supply and demand for loans, and in which some credit risks have materialized. Preferential and ordinary commercial interest rates have fallen to a similar degree as the benchmark interest rate. As is generally the case, this transmission has come at a slower pace for consumer credit rates, and has been further delayed in the case of mortgage rates. Commercial credit levels stabilized above pre-pandemic levels in March, following an increase resulting from significant liquidity requirements for businesses in the second quarter of 2020. The consumer credit portfolio continued to recover and has now surpassed February 2020 levels, though overall growth in the portfolio remains low. At the same time, portfolio projections and default indicators have increased, and credit establishment earnings have come down. Despite this, credit disbursements continue to recover and solvency indicators remain well above regulatory minimums. 1.2 Monetary policy decision In its meetings in March and April the BDBR left the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 1.75%.