Radio România Internațional

Tag: dance

  • Radio Romania International Sports club

    Radio Romania International Sports club


    The year 2023 was an auspicious one for Romanian sports as compared to the latter period, mainly in certain sports disciplines. Exceptional results were reported for rowing. As for gymnastics and football, we have secured our comeback in the world’s great competitions.



    As usual, the end of the year brings with it the most prominent performers’ rankings, compiled by the sports federations and clubs.



    At the Romanian Rowing Federation, the best athlete title went to Simona Radis, world and European champion in the double sculls event, as well as European champion in the coxed eight event. Radis was also nominated the best member of Steaua Bucharest Army Sports Club.



    Dinamo Bucharest’s top-flight athletes are also award-winning rowers. They are Mădălina Bereş, Amalia Bereş and Maria Lehaci Tivodariu. The four had identical results in 2023: They won two gold medals each at the European Championships in Bled. Also, they won one gold medal and one silver medal each at the World Championships in Belgrade.



    For the second year in a row, Cătălin Chirilă has been designated the Romanian Kayak-Canoe Federation’s best athlete. In 2023, Catalin won one gold and one silver medal at the World Championships in Duisburg. It was also in Duisburg that Chirila secured his ticket for the Olympics. Also, Catalin Chirila won a silver medal at the European Games in Poland.



    The Roman Gymnastics Federation’s Executive Committee has designated the year’s best gymnasts. They are Sabrina Maneca Voinea, Andrei Muntean and David Gavrilovici Sabrina Maneca Voinea won bronze in the floor event as part of the European Championships in Antalya. Sabina came in 4th in the vault event, also securing her qualification to the 2024 edition of the Olympics. In artistic gymnastics, Andrei Muntean has qualified to the Olympic Games in Paris. In aerobic gymnastics, David Gavrilovici scooped the Shooting Star award as part of the European Championships in Antalya. Gavrilovici’s record back then was made of three gold medals, in trio, aerobic dance and in the teams’ event.




  • The virtual learning lab and other stories

    The virtual learning lab and other stories

    Over the past two years, life switched to
    the online mode. So it comes as no surprise that even dance had to learn to
    exist online, although it seems counter-intuitive. Today we look at a
    one-of-a-kind project, a strategic partnership in the area of professional
    training and vocational education, co-financed under the EU’s Erasmus+ programme:
    Teachers for SwanZ. A project initiated by the Floria Capsali Choreography
    High School in Bucharest, jointly with the Prof. Vesselin Stoyanov National
    Art School in Ruse, Bulgaria, the Attitude Company in Vienna, Austria and the
    Greek Union in Romania.




    The project was launched on December 1, 2020, and
    it targeted the so-called Generation Z. Alina Munteanu, a psychologist with the
    Choreography High School and the Dinu Lipatti Music High School, gave us more
    details:




    Alina Munteanu: Generation Z comprises
    children born between 1996 and 2010. They are a little special, in that they
    were born across a millennium and as such they share some of the features of
    Gen X, they adjust easily to working on devices, and are very good at
    multi-tasking. For instance, our students do their homework and at the same
    time they listen to music, send messages on tiktok, like and share online
    stories. It is fascinating to see these kids speak English so well, express the
    Romanian culture through dancing, their willingness to get to know the Greek,
    Bulgarian and Austrian cultures and to promote the Romanian culture around the
    world. It has been a fascinating experience, and I believe it is a new
    beginning for a choreography high school.




    Denitsa Krastanova, deputy head of the Prof.
    Vesselin Stoyanov National Art School in Ruse, also spoke about her school’s
    participation in the project:




    Denitsa Krastanova: To start with a brief presentation of our school-we provide
    general primary and secondary education as well as vocational art education in areas
    like musical instruments, classical singing, traditional folk singing, pop and
    jazz singing, classical dance, Bulgarian folk dance, fine arts, advertising
    design and drama. As a vocational school, we were delighted to accept the Floria
    Capsali Choreography High School’s invitation to join the project Teachers for
    SwanZ under Erasmus+, for a number of reasons. After we looked at the goals and
    the essence of the project, we assessed its long-term benefits and its positive
    impact. Teachers for SwanZ was an alternative way to improve professional
    skills, a know-how exchange and a means to encourage creativity in teaching
    dancing and social skills.




    Laura Cristinoiu, a ballet teacher and the head
    of the Attitude Ballet Studios in Vienna, looked back on the project after its
    completion:




    Laura Cristinoiu: I am very glad to look back
    at these two years of work, one of them online, which is rather odd for a dance
    project. We are talking about dance, about ballet teachers, about teaching
    classical, folk and modern dance. I am very happy with the 3 outputs of the
    project, namely a ballet guideline for teachers of other subjects in public
    high schools, a dance handbook for teachers of classical dance in private and
    public dance schools, and, our greatest achievement, the online platform teachersforswanz.eu,
    where one can access all our workshops and everything we did during these two
    years. More importantly, this platform is a means of certification from this
    project for future dance teachers.




    Diana Zăvălaș, a piano teacher with the Floria
    Capsali Choreography High School and the project coordinator, told us why this
    project was necessary:




    Diana Zăvălaș: Teachers only have access to
    obsolete methods, there are no life-long education programmes for dance
    teachers, and we set out to help them in this respect and also to provide some
    communication, networking, intercultural dialogue and coaching workshops, so
    that they may improve their relations with their students, their co-workers,
    and the parents. We applied for funding under Erasmus Plus and we found 3 other
    partners who wanted the same things, namely to improve teaching methodologies
    and help develop teachers’ skills. Becoming familiar with other cultures and
    other types of methods is important, and such an international experience is
    quite enriching.




    Apart from the specialised beneficiaries, Teachers
    for SwanZ and the Virtual learning lab also address dance lovers in general,
    and those who would like to learn and specialise in various types of dance,
    from classical ballet to folk dance and to contemporary dance. (AMP)

  • Dance at the 28th National Theater Festival

    Dance at the 28th National Theater Festival

    The National Theater Festival brings to Bucharest, from one year to the next, theater shows as well as dance performances, which are genuine artistic events. The festival is very successful and this years edition had to be extended by one day, for the performance of the famous Nederlands Dans Theater, which closed the festival.



    Gabriela Carrizo co-founder together with Franck Cartier of the famous Peeping Tom Belgian troupe, presented her new work, Moeder/Mother at the current edition of the National Theater Festival. Premiered in 2016, Moeder is the second volume of a trilogy of the Peeping Tom troupe which made its debut with Vader/Father in 2014 and will end with Kind/Child in 2019. Gabriela Carizzos choreographic style is original and easy to recognize, while her stage performances create a strong emotional impact, providing a fresh perspective on the theme she approached. In her works, the artist always starts from the idea of the set design. Space was also very important in the creation of Moeder, Gabriela Carizzo told Radio Romania International.




    Dancer and choreographer Ana Maria Lucaciu left Romania at the age of 12, on a scholarship offered by the National Ballet School of Canada. At present, Ana Maria Lucaciu works in the United States. Throughout the years, Ana Maria Lucaciu has come to Romania a couple of times, yet, after 28 years, this year it was the first time when she danced in front of a Romanian audience. The organizers of the National Theater Festival invited Ana Maria Lucaciu with her dance performance ‘Slightly Off Stage, a show she created jointly with Nathan Griswold. It was the first contemporary dance performance for which Ana Maria Lucaciu created the choreography:



    Ana Maria Lucaciu: As of late, Ive felt there are a couple of things I want to say or try. What I see in the world right now is not what I want to say or do. I drew a lot of my inspiration from the clowning workshops which I took part in. Clowning strips one bare, it reveals what is human and non-human, and I wanted to see if I can achieve that through choreography and through everything I know about dance. I started from the slightly absurd situation, when somebody tells you something, and in support of that they use the phrase ‘they told me that, or ‘they say that or ‘they did that. But who are they? So, this is where it started from. Then I wanted “them to be in charge of the stage. I wanted everything to come from high up, not from us. Everything is ordered. And nothing is as it should be. I liked the idea that we, being on stage, should be subject to an exterior force from outside the stage.



    Romania was represented in the dance section of the Festival by the production “Charity/To_R of Studio M from Sfantu Gheorghe, directing and choreography by Pal Frenak. Imola Marton, director of Studio M:



    Imola Marton: “Pal Frenak told us he wanted to do a show based on the idea of imaginary charity, which can equally be a wedding and alms giving…The production features a situation in between reality and imagination, dwelling on various human relationships and states of mind – loneliness, the inability of getting in touch with another person or with ourselves, conflicts, love, various states of mind from gaiety to the feeling stirred by participation in charity. Pal Frenak creates images focusing on those states of mind. That is why, the show does not have an explicit story, but in a way it is a very lyrical and visual piece.



    As we said earlier, the National Theatre Festival ended with a dance show, presented by Nederlands Dans Theater. It was an event not only for the audiences but also for the members of Nederlands Dans Theater, as choreographer Paul Lightfoot, the artistic director of the company told us: “Its been 12 years since I came here. Coming back to Romania it was very important for me to show the diversity of our work, how incredibly chameleonic the company and the shows we produce can be, as everything we bring over is created in our company. Nederlands Dans Theater presented four shows: “Shoot the Moon by Sol Leon and Paul Lightfoot, “Woke Up Blind by Marco Goecke, “The Statement by Crystal Pite and “Vladimir by Hofesh Shechter.




    The show “Vladimir has recently had its premiere. Hofesh Shechter, one of the most interesting artists in Great Britain, signs not only the choreography but also the music of the show. As theatre critic Oana Stoica said, “the shows of Nederlands Dans Theater were a most appropriate conclusion of the National Theater Festival.


    (translated by: Eugen Nasta)

  • LINOTIP – A new space tailored for contemporary dance

    LINOTIP – A new space tailored for contemporary dance

    Towards the end of 2016, choreographers Arcadie Rusu and Ioana Marchidan made public the opening of a space dedicated to contemporary dance, LINOTIP Independent Choreography Center. Located at the heart of the capital city Bucharest, in the building of Universul Palace, which hosts a number of other independent projects, Linotip is a solution to the critical shortage of venues for dance shows.



    Arcadie Rusu: “We have a very important mission as contemporary dance barely exists in Romania. There is no such thing as a culture as far as contemporary dance is concerned, which was banned during the communist regime. I believe contemporary dance is a special form of art. And we are really interested in educating the audience in this respect. More often than not, the things left unsaid are more obvious than the others. We have, in our genetic code, a certain intelligence that allows us to swiftly detect and read corporal gestures and intentions. We dont understand them mentally, but emotionally. What I would really like is to stage dance shows that are watched by people who have never seen a contemporary dance show before. I believe that contemporary dance is not a form of art aimed for the connoisseurs alone, but also for the general public.



    Linotip Independent Choreography Center has a capacity of 60-70 seats and a stage of 120 sqm. Its not that simple to manage a venue for independent projects. That requires a strategy for at least six months, in order to keep it functional and have a faithful audience, says Ioana Marchidan:



    We have already staged our fourth contemporary dance workshop, so we are focusing on the educational aspect. The amateurs who take part in our workshops also make up the audience of most dance shows in the city, not only of those staged by Linotip. The next step, actually the step we have already taken, is a dance season. To the best of my knowledge, there has been no such thing as a dance season so far. The public only knows they go to the Linotip Independent Choreography Center to watch dance performances. Three shows a week…Just as it happens in theater. So we are going to organize a dance season, with our own shows and with guest shows. We want to grant a Linotip Award to Drama and Film Students, be they BA or Masters students, in a bid to stimulate them to perform before a ticket-paying audience. Right now talks are in progress with choreographer Massimo Gerardi, as we want him to come and hold a workshop for professionals and for amateurs. We want him to perform some of his previous shows, such as Magnetic Fields, a Romanian-German co-production. And we invited him to stage a performance with the Linotip company.



    The Linotip season kicked off on February the 1st, with the premiere of “Babel, a show created and choreographed by Arcadie Rusu, a show about the contemporary man and the jungle-like city.



    Arcadie Rusu: “First of all, it is a performance inspired from the life that we live. Bucharest has been the research platform for this performance. Generally speaking, “Babel is a show about our involution as human beings. We have evolved significantly in terms of technology, but emotionally we still have the same problems. We havent fully understood that our life will eventually come to an end and material things will not matter at all anymore. We are looking for some sort of stability, of balance, hence the egocentric and materialistic ideas that make us miss out on our spiritual nuances. So “Babel is a contemporary dance show speaking about the illusion of stability.“



    “Babel was followed by a second premiere signed by Linotip. The show “2 contemporary women was created and choreographed by Ioana Marchidan:



    “The show is a little bit about a womans status as compared with that of men, about the gender discrimination throughout history. We know very well that in the past women used to be somebodys property – their fathers or their husbands. Women used to be sold, pardon me for saying that, just like cattle. I did a bit of research on the suffragettes who fought for womens right to vote. And I tried to speak about that, but I took everything to the present moment, I tackled some of the sub-themes of feminism. It is a feminist show, but I did not want it to be a militant performance, I did not want to go to the extremes. I started with bits from womens adolescence, when they have to deal with all sorts of sexist insults while walking down the street. In puberty and adolescence girls are vulnerable, they are sensitive, and things like these can affect them.



    Its not that easy to open and manage an independent dance show venue. However, choreographer Ioana Marchidan is confident:



    “I think there is an auspicious context right now, given whats going on in the Victory Square and in politics…all the more so as our shows speak exactly about what is happening at present…(…) I think the audience needs this kind of shows and venues. Its hard but its worth it. Im sure things will go well for us.

  • Dance Events at the FITS 2017

    Dance Events at the FITS 2017

    In 1992, Noa Wertheim and Adi Shaal founded in Jerusalem the Vertigo Dance Company, famous in Israel and much appreciated at the festival in Sibiu, where they have been coming for five years now. This year, at the 24th edition of the festival, they presented two shows, “Vertigo 20”, an anniversary show that was awarded the prize for excellence in performance, offered by the Israeli Ministry of Culture and Sports, and “Yama”, a more recent show, created by choreographer Noa Wertheim. “Yama” is completely different from “Vertigo 20”, as it is less a celebration and more of a spiritual endeavor.



    Israel also contributed to the festival the Kibbuts Contemporary Dance Company, with the show “Horses in the Sky”, choreographed by Rami Beer, and the Batsheva Dance Company, with the show Naharins Virus, by Ohad Naharin. The latter won the 2002 Bessie Award at the New York Dance and Performance Awards. Naharin is the creator of the Gaga pedagogy as a language of movement, and is one of the six artists to get a star on Sibiu’s Walk of Fame.



    Also as a part of the dance section, this is the second year in Sibiu for the Brenda Angiel Dance Company of Argentina. Brenda founded in 1994 the group that bears her name, and in 1998 she founded the first aerial dance school in Buenos Aires. After their resounding success with their spectacular show “High Altitude Tango”, they came back this year with a sequel, in which the dancers float in mid-air, using both the floor and the walls, creating a kaleidoscope of moving and animation.



    In addition to Israel, Argentina, Spain, France and South Korea, Romania played its part, too. Choreographer Gigi Caciuleanu put on a dance show for the young generation, #EMOJIPLAY, first staged at the Excelsior Theatre in Bucharest. According to the artist, the show combines in a playful way the tri-dimensional language of actors, visual aspects, and the strange bi-dimensional world of new symbols and metaphors.



    Gigi Caciuleanu: “The idea of communication is very much a part of the show, the idea of dialogue. Sometimes it is a dialogue of deaf people, like swiping something off a screen, like scraping a matchstick on the side of the box. It is true that, with a gesture like that, you could push a partner off their feet, as if ‘unliking’ them. In a way, this need for human aspects in a dehumanising world becomes very important. This is the idea of the show. Modern man is faced with many screens, a lot of technology which does not necessarily preserve his humanity. Maybe we will have to turn into robots, or, quite the opposite, spending so much time among screens, we will become fleshier. Our flesh, our skin, our eyes, our gazes, might become a more interesting dialogue than a few characters on a screen.”



    Gigi Caciuleanu earned his star on Sibiu’s Walk of Fame at the very first edition of this project, launched in 2013, for his unique vision of dance and theatre.

  • Die Musikpreise Radio Rumänien 2013

    Die Musikpreise Radio Rumänien 2013

    Am Sonntag fand im Konzertsaal des Rumänischen Rundfunks die Verleihung der Musikpreise Radio Rumänien für das Jahr 2013 statt. Am Galaabend der Musikpreise wurde die beliebte rumänische Sängerin, Komponistin und Schauspielerin Loredana mit der Trophäe Künstler des Jahres“ ausgezeichnet. Offensichtlich berührt von dieser Auszeichnung, die ihr die Hörer von Radio Rumänien verliehen hatten, erklärte Loredana am Galaabend: Musik ist mein Leben, Musik ist mein Schicksal, und dieser Preis ist die Bestätigung dafür, da‎ß ich den richtigen Weg gewählt habe, den Weg zu Ihren Herzen.“ Zusammen mit Cornel Ilie gewann Loredana auch den Preis fürs Duett, mit dem Lied Nu stiu cine esti“ (Ich wei‎ß nicht, wer du bist“).



    Bei der 12. Auflage der Musikpreise Radio Rumänien wurden 17 Trophäen verliehen, nach Genres und Kategorien, für die besten musikalischen Leistungen des Jahres 2013 in den Bereichen Pop, Folk, Pop-Dance und Pop-Rock. Die Preise wurden von Sondergästen, Sängern, Komponisten, Persönlichkeiten der rumänischen Musik eingereicht.



    Das Lied des Jahres” wurde “Perfect fara tine” (“Perfekt ohne dich”), mit der Gruppe Vama. Das beste Pop-Lied war Ecou“ (Echo“) gesungen von Elena Gheorghe feat. Glance; Aroma“ mit DJ Sava wurde zum besten Pop-Dance-Stück. Die beste Pop-Sängerin des Jahres 2013 war Andra, die auch noch für die CD Inevitabil va fi bine“ (Es wird unvermeidlich gut“) den Preis für das beste Pop-Album erhielt. Smiley wurde zum besten Pop-Sänger des Jahres und gewann auch die Trophäe für die beste Botschaft mit dem Lied Acasa“ (Zu Hause“).



    Die Gruppe Holograf wurde für das Stück Roua diminetii“ (Morgentau“) mit den Preisen für den besten Pop-Rock-Künstler und das beste Pop-Rock-Stück ausgezeichnet. Das beste Folk-Album war Mozaic“ (Mosaik“) von Nicu Alifantis; Alifantis erhielt auch die Auszeichnung Omul cu chitara“ (Der Mann mit der Gitarre“). Das Lied Sentimente“ (Gefühle“) brachte Vasile Seicaru den Preis für das beste Folk-Lied.



    Die 15-jährige Nicole Cherry wurde mit dem Preis für das beste Debüt des Jahres 2013 ausgezeichnet, und die 13-jährige Vanessa Marzavan erhielt den Preis Radio Rumänien Junior. Bester Komponist des Jahres 2013 wurde Laurentiu Duta. Der Komponist Jolt Kerestely wurde bei der 12. Auflage der Musikpreise Radio Rumänien mit dem Sonderpreis für die gesamte Karriere geehrt. Sein Sondergast, der Sänger Marcel Pavel, bot dem Publikum ein spezielles Geschenk: er sang das Lied Copacul“ (Der Baum“), ein Juwel komponiert von Maestro Kerestely.



    Zum Abschlu‎ß des Galaabends gab Loredana, die Künstlerin des Jahres 2013, ein feuriges Rezital in Begleitung ihres Orchesters Agurida“ (Verjus“). Loredana sang die bekannten Schlager, die ihr die besten Plätze in den Hitlisten sicherten und von den öffentlich-rechtlichen Radiosendern oft ausgestrahlt wurden.