FOLK DANCES FROM

ROMANIA

SCOALA CU CLASELE I – VIII “SFANTUL ANDREI”

SECONDARY SCHOOL “SAINT ANDREW”

BRAILA, ROMANIA

MULTILATERAL PARTENERSHIP

“EUROPEAN MUSICAL PORTOFOLIO” HEADMASTER: ROTARU CATALINA

TEACHERS:

MIHAI ADINA, BABES MARIAN, CRAIOVEANU AURELIA,

MANCIULESCU CORNELIA, RADU IOANA This project

has been funded with support from

the European Commission

This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein

RHYTM AND HARMONY

• "The man received the Gods with

pleasure feeling the rhythm and

harmony.

• The Gods themselves were the

conductors of their dances, and the

name of the heart, Choros, derives

naturally from the word which

means happiness, chora" Platon,

Laws, II, 653/4.

FOLK DANCES

HORA

PERINITA

(the little pillow)

SUMMER

CUSTOMS

GAMES WITH

MASKS

MORISCA

CALUSUL GOAT’S DANCE

BRASOVEANCA

PLOUGH

PENGUIN DANCE

HORA

• When the incoming Greek-speaking peoples arrived into the Balkan Peninsula, from the north, during the first millennium BC, they adopted the Pelasgian sacred mountain, Olimpus, which was guarded by the Pelasgian priestess of Hera, the amazons called Horai or Horae.

• In the Iliad they were the custodians of the gates of Olympus. They are also the collective personification of justice. Hesoid, who saw them as givers of the law, justice and peace gave them the names Eunomia (Discipline), Dike (Justice) and Eirene (Peace).

• The Horae became in the Greek mythology, the personifications of the seasons and goddesses of natural order.

• In later mythology the Horae became the four seasons. When the day was divided into 12 equal parts, each of them took the name of Hora. Their yearly festival was the Horaia or Horaea.

• The "hour" comes from Greek Hora, Pers. Houri, who kept the hours of the night by dances - the "ladies of the hour".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnhSBe8diDo

• Hora, plural Hore (same reading as greek Horae), is the name of an ancient circular dance, which survived up to nowdays in Romania.

• In the ancient times, naked women danced it.

• In Romania there were found three clay depictions of this dance, two of them having five dancers and one with six dancers.

• The last one, which is the most famous, was found at Bodesti-Frumusica, in Moldavia. All of them are dating from 4000 - 3000 BC.

• These objects have been used as crowns, during some ritual ceremonies.

• So that you are looking at the oldest crowns ever found!

• The Romanian circular dance called hora is a metaphor for the community: the circle opens admittion nubile women, adolescent boys entering manhood, and those ending mourning; conversely, it shuts out anyone who has violated local moral standards. There are few patterns of dance steps.

• The dancers, while facing the center, are stepping forward and backward, making the hora to resemble to either to a wave, or to a whirlpool, when they are doing quick steps in only one direction. Usually the dancers are moving more to the right, so that the circle moves counterclockwise.

• The "entering into the hora", performed usually on Easter, marks the entering of the girl into the adolescence. The days before and after her wedding, the girl must dance into the hora, because the wedding rituals are accomplished through the magic of this dance which guarantees the abundance, the good luck and the divine blessing during the marriage.

PERINITA

• "Perinita" (the little pillow) is a distinctive Romanian dance of the kiss.

• It is a hora dance, in which alternatively, men and women pick their partners from the circle of the dancers, for a short swirl, and a kiss upon the dance floor while kneeling in the middle of the hora, on a little pillow or on an embroidered handkerchief.

• After the kissing, the last chosen will choose a new partner, while his former partner takes his place into the hora. This dance is performed on the night of the New Year and is the last hora on the wedding celebrations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px12Ec5iJtY

MORISCA

(the little mill)

• In ancient times, dances were widely used in the passing rites such as passing of the seasons, wedding celebrations and funerary celebrations. Such a passing rite was also the milling of the seeds. It has already been mentioned that the name of the Morris dance comes from the Romanian word morisca, which means "the little mill".

• The Romanian word for mill is moara, which also means to die or dieing, while omoara means killing. Mara was the Hindu god of death and Moros was in Hesiod's Theogonia, a "divine being who's mother was the night". The Romanian word moroi means ghost.

• In the village of Nerej, Vrancea county from Romania, the participants to a funeral watch and play the funerary dance of farewell, around a brushwood fire which symbolizes the sacred fire of the hearth , and they wear masks.This dance is called the hora of death watch. The majority of masques are called "unchiaşi" (uncles). Other young boys are disguising into women, other into different animals such as the bear, and others into devils. All of them are dancing around the funerary fire.

THE PENGUIN DANCE

• The penguin dance – is the latest fashion in Romanian’s wedding, being a dance and song of Finnish origins.

• The Finnish dance is called “JENKA” and arrived in Romania, most probably by the Greek’s version, called “GIANKA”.

• The Romanian sounds is also inspired from ’50s Finnish song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MEN0cUZjSs

BRASOVEANCA

• Brasoveanca – it is a pair dance, the pairs are dancing on a rhythm which is becoming more and more alert.

Brasoveanca - wedding dance from Brasov area

• And, three steps forward and three back That's Brasoveanca which we dance Three steps forward and three back That's Brasoveanca which we dance The girl goes left than she passes right The girl goes left, that's Brasoveanca, hey! (Bis stanza)

• That is how the girl dances Also on the left and right! And forward and back, As we dance!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KtMt_e366M

GAMES WITH

MASKS

• In the framework of traditional communities, the calendar cycle and its constituent moments are marked out by sets of customs, components of each community's folk system.

• The calendar used to organize the time from both a material and spiritual standpoint: the dates, moments and periods inscribed therein were not viewed as units of measure, but as units of quality assessment of the rhythm of time.

• The calendar was the expression of this rhythm of time; it was, functionally speaking, a reference point for the peasant's entire material and spiritual being.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bseN7ZMGBFs

http://youtu.be/1W_I9EWL898

• In the primitive societies, the early forms of disguising, masking appeared in the process of work and were connected with magic practices.

• Archaic ceremonies would resort to dance, pantomime, music, pictorial and sculptural elements, poetic text, in actual fact to a complex of syncretic, typically folk, elements imitating an action.

• The characteristic element embodying this metamorphosis was the mask. The use of mask in theatrical representations facilitates the recognition of a character's scenic function; the mask is a formalized accessory that makes the person who wears it to acquire an identity and a precise signification, according to a given custom.

• Individual occupations, productive activities as well as the principal moments' of a man's life - birth, marriage and death - are rigorously ordered in the calendar by a system of customs marked by fixed or changeable dates, with free intervals and periods of interdiction, which are ultimately based on a different system that coordinates and articulates that community's whole life and activity, namely religious system.

• In Romania, particularly in the Vrancea area , but also in Maramures, and seemingly in other parts of the country, as well games with anthropomorphic masks have been practiced of old and vigil time, at the funerary ceremonial that preceded the burial of the dead. Some specialists would see in it the group of dead old men meeting the newly deceased one get, there also exists a zoomorphic vigil goat mask, in which the performer used to lament for the dead until the assistance would chase him away.

• As known, a close connection exists between funerary and fertility rites; however, one should not overlook the importance of the Christian burial ceremonial, the gravity of this act and the exigency of the church and the faithful in this matter.

• The old form of the relationship between the goat's old man and the goat itself, as played at vigil time, has developed into the modern old man – old woman couple, which diversifies the image of our ancestors while protecting the community and defending fertility.

SUMMER CUSTOMS

• SANZIENE DANCE

• LAZARITELE

• PAPARUDE

• CUNUNA

SECERISULUI

It's summer time in

Romania, the sun is shining

and one can even smell the

ripped corn and the newly

made bread. Summer

customs seem to be magic

rituals meant to protect the

crops.

LAZARITELE

• The fertility of the land is required by

the custom of "Lazaritele", a relict of

the ancient worship of the sun: young

girls are going from house to house,

wishing abundance and good health to

the hosts.

PAPARUDE

• In case of drought, the "Paparude", very

young gipsy girls, wearing only leaves, are

dancing and singing incantation meant to

bring rain. http://youtu.be/k5ig9-Djfxw

CUNUNA SECERISULUI

• In many Romanian villages the harvest has had a feast dedicated to it called "Cununa Secerissului" or "Cununa" because of the traditional wreath made of twisted ears of corn worn by girls on their heads. The group of girls go to all the houses in the village, praising the people's labour and expressing their joy for the new bread. As a matter of fact ears of corn and grain appear figuratively in a lot of picturesque elements of Romanian folklore and so do flowers on either wooden objects, fabrics or ceramics.

http://youtu.be/TX-tudjDNxQ

SANZIENE DANCE

• On the 23rd of June, on the summer solstice, there is the celebration of Sanziene or Rusalii, who are the fairies protecting the crops and are dancing in the air, over the fields and forests. During this day, women are dancing in a hora, having at its middle buckets with water, flowers and personal objects, as offerings to the fairies.

http://youtu.be/d4P8wCoFGA0

CALUSUL

http://youtu.be/8E-Z_ugiRnA

http://youtu.be/3Iw4FhBg_XY

ORIGINS OF CALUSUL • Dimitrie Cantemir, the king of Moldavia (1693, 1710-1711) and a remarkable

historian, wrote in his work "Descriptio Moldaviae", about the so called caluczeni telling us that they gathered in groups of 7, 9 or 11, wearing woman clothing and making their voices to sound like the women ones.

• They were jumping as if they were flying, with their swords in hands. They were treating the sick ones, and if they killed somebody, they were not punished.

• The Caluczenii had to fulfill their ritual duties for nine years, otherways they were punished by the spirits.

• The Romanian folklorist Fochi Adrian wrote: "They are bound to remain into the calus for 3, 5 or 9 years. They are worshiping three fairies left by God to punish the humans (...). If one of them gets sick during the calus, they go to find other group of calusari, where all of them, are trying to remove the sickness of their comrade, with dances and tours around him."

ABOUT DANCE OF CALUSUL

• A calusari group is active for only a ritually defined period of time during the spring, and begins with a ceremony called "raising the flag," which is performed secretly and includes the members swearing oaths to the group and its leader.

• During the period of calus, the members are bound by a taboo against any sexual contact with women, and married members must live apart from their wives.

• There is always an old number of men in a group. In addition to the dancing, the group also does skits very much like the folk theater.

• The most important part, of what they do is the ritual

curing of delirium or paralysis caused by the possession by wood or water nymphs, or fairies.

• Before performing this ritual, one of the members draws a magic circle around the group with his sword.

• The space inside is considered a sacred space, and no one else is permitted to enter except the person being cured.

• The leader would divine the specific taboo that had been violated by the victim, and pick the dance appropriate to it.

• After the dance, the cure culminated in the breaking of an earthenware jar next to the sick person, destroying the evil spirits.

• Sometimes one of the calusari would then become possessed as the victim recovers. He would then be revived by one of the many types of death and resurrection skits that are a large part of the folk theater. Again, many of these have humorous and bawdy aspects.

• The leader of the group is the one

responsible for choosing and training any

new members, and is also the keeper of

the mysteries, passing the secrets orally

to his successor. Kligman says that one

retired leader would not reveal any of the

secrets even though there was no longer a

group in his village, but indicated that he

still had to pass on the knowledge.

• Now days, the "calusari", often accompanied by a masked personage (the mute) carry clubs and are performing dances of great virtuosity. The unexpected developments of the dance are accompanied by "strigaturi" (humorous or satirical verse chanted during the dance) and the tunes sung by the groups of interpreters.

• In Slatina, every year opens the competition of "calusari", presenting the distinct style of each separate team of dancers. Thrilling competitions of virtuosity are interrupted by solo dancers, some of whom are very old men, and even children who have inherited their parents’ talent.

PLOUGH

• In ancient times, the New Year was celebrated at the end of March.

• The Plough rituals are coming from that period, but changed the date together with the change of the calendar.

• Plough is celebrated on the 31st of December. On this occasion, people are walking with the plough, from house to house, telling greetings of prosperity for the year to come.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB6a7dybzeI

http://youtu.be/Ir-JWILveoE

"Plough" at Bucharest, Romania at

the beginning of the 20th century

THE GOAT’S DANCE

• Goats dance is very old and practiced on a large scale in South – Eastern Europe.

• In Romania it is known in the village all regions of the country, with several names: Capra (Goat), Turca, Brezaia. The dance has deep symbolical meanings – goat was an animal worshiped in ancient times so it is associated with fertility cult.

• Its behavior around New Year is premonitory one in relation to the abundance or troubles that follow. Therefore, the happy dance of goat ensures wealth in the coming year.

• Children are particularly engaged in this dance. There are 2 or 3 dancers - one of them are completely masked and covered with colored clothes, other two are appointed shepherds and play the flute or recite comic texts to the goat which is dancing.

• The mask was made earlier from animal skins. Today, the fabrics materials are used to achieve it crepe paper, tassels, bells. The head is made of hard wood where the skins of animals are glide. Lower jaw is mobile, so that a noise is produced in the rhythm of the dance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb_iVlPUQUQ

http://youtu.be/VfrD6SV903s

CONCLUSIONS

• We hope that you liked our traditional dances.

• Now, many of these dances lost their first

significance , but there are still danced on the

important events: marriage, birth or other

events.

• Many people knew these dances and they are

transmitted from generation to generation until

these days.