A first attempt at collecting in a book texts on personalities of Romanian dance or who have spent a decisive stage in their formation within the framework and in the atmosphere of a Romanian "school" is bound to be controversial. Although partial and subjective, the present selection reveals the existence of an enormous documentary material that could and should be studied more thoroughly with the instruments of historiography, critique and aesthetics, as part of an academic project, whose premise and signal it could be. Signaling the drama inexorably accompanying this poetic art of space, the drama of the sign-body and of time turned illusion. Our effort, intended initially to examine the myths circulating in a certain professional and journalistic environment, has come to reveal the extraordinary brilliance, continuity and quality in a professional field molded by several artistic personalities who have dominated our national scene, and by an institutional framework somehow stable for several decades – although regulated excessively before 1989 by the communist regime – having a number of links with the world elite of the dance industry. After '89, the incipient market for symbolic goods has been less favorable to dancing as compared to other fields (literature, music, theater); it is common knowledge that dancing has been vehemently dismissed as a minor art (the art of a minority?), according to a "local" cliché still circulating in our country. Despite this and against the general perception, Romanian dancing is a myth that cannot even be taken out of the classical opposition myth-reality. Following in the footsteps of our distinguished collaborators, Liana Tugearu, Silvia Ciurescu and Luminiţa Vartolomei, I have identified a "modern" period, covering several decades, extremely prolific in terms of the Romanian presence on European stages, the world recognition of Romanian dancers and dance teachers, and the density of a socio-cultural national network in which Bucharest represented the center of a chain of dance schools and companies of somehow similar value (Cluj, Iaşi, Timişoara, Constanţa, etc.). There is also another method of assessing the quality and valences of Romanian dancing by examining the successive emigration waves (the '70s, the '80s and the '90s) – which led to the presence of a large number of active dancers and dance teachers in the West (Germany, Italy, France, Canada, USA), much larger than the number of those who stayed home – and the range of career opportunities open to them due to their talent and training. Therefore, the number of personalities and the dimensions of the Diaspora represent not just an impressive configuration and an indication of the offensive of Romanian dancing, but also a source of development along different coordinates. At the somehow opposite pole of the internal dynamics of the phenomenon, we could dwell – in another context, of course – upon the force of the cultural model that allowed for the synchronous innovative opening of the '80s, accounting for the boom in music, drama, visual arts and cinema; we should mention here the collaborative work of the dancers and choreographers Miriam Răducanu, Adina Cezar, Raluca Ianegic and Sergiu Anghel with several avant-garde composers such as Aurel Stroe, Tiberiu Olah, Anatol Vieru and others, Ioan Tugearu and Mihaela Athanasiu's fathoming of theatricalness and of the narrative techniques, Alex Schneider and Francisc Valkay's experimenting with the limits of the language and with a generativism of musical origin, and Vera Proca-Ciortea's own version of what the French call "recherche", something between the search and research of the previous efforts of Floria Capsali, Mitiţă Dumitrescu, Oleg Danovski and others. The present book is the symptom of a crisis, or rather of a series of crises of Romanian dancing. The fragility of the institutional reform process, the fragmentation and quite often the dispersion of mentalities into areas of true adversity, in the absence of a pragmatic guideline and of adequate resources, the presence of a highly active group, of a program and of contemporary dance centers (the DCM Foundation, the MAD Center, the contemporary dance academies in Bucharest and Cluj, the festivals and the choreographic creation contests), all against a background with a still undecided force ratio, reflect a cultural conflict between generations and styles, as well as the difficulty of a true dialogue, but mostly ask for an analysis of the future trends, which thus become possible food for thought. This is an argument – unavoidably marked by an assumed subjectivity – in favor of the Romanian choreographers and dancers who, deprived of the outlet of other cultural spaces, have nevertheless successfully based their professional system and dignity on incredibly simple resources and means, quite often with a sense of sacrifice, as part of a superb utopian project. A utopian project that has sometimes made them give up contracts with foreign theaters for an illusory solidarity, which proved at times to be just a conflicting tangle and an infinite texture of mutual denials. Changing the perspective, we aim to restore the cosmopolitan and the value-acknowledging vocation of our national cultural life, both of them due to a number of dance critics and historians comparable, in terms of quality, to their Western counterparts: the late Dan Brezuleanu, the founding Director of the Iaşi festival EURODANS, Mitiţă Dumitrescu, Liana Tugearu, Vivia Săndulescu, Sergiu Anghel, Luminiţa Vartolomei, Silvia Ciurescu, Grigore Constantinescu, Dumitru Avakian. At the same time, the drama-dance theme has lately penetrated the Romanian press under the signature of theater critics such as Ludmila Patlanjoglu, Natalia Stancu, Florica Ichim, Alice Georgescu, Octavian Saiu and Carmen Stanciu, or investigative reporters like Liana Cojocaru and others. This book provides a merely provisional outline of the consciousness of an active group that generates projects with a view not just to opening, but to a larger European integration. The consciousness (and pride) of an identity to which the "sacred monsters", the variable geometry of events and the laboratory of each dance studio have equally made their contribution.
by Ana Maria Munteanu
