Radio România Internațional

Category: World of Culture

  • The Bucharest International Literature Festival

    The Bucharest International Literature Festival

    The 9th edition of the Bucharest International Literature Festival was held between December 7 and 9 in Romania’s capital city. It was a roundup edition, according to organizers, that included two public reading and debates sessions, hosted by the Romanian Peasant Museum and an event dedicated to students and staged jointly with the Department of Communication Sciences with the Bucharest’s Faculty of Letters. At the debut evening of public readings and debates at the Peasant Club on December 8th, literature lovers had the chance to meet prose writers Irina Teodorescu, Veronica D. Niculescu, Lavinia Branişte and Irina Georgescu Groza.



    Translator and writer Veronica D. Niculescu tells us how she got round to writing Heading towards valleys of jade and darnel ryegrass, a novel brought out by Polirom Publishes in 2016. This is the second volume that Veronica D. Niculescu published in 2016, after Hybernalia, a sequel of Animal Symphony, with both volumes being published by the Casa de Pariuri Literare.



    With details on all that, here is Veronica D. Niculescu: ”It is a volume I had been working on for about three years and I can say it all started as a game. It is a story of a girl writing a book. And that character writes a book that is different from the kind of book I would write. I chose this strategy as I have always wanted the book that I write to include the book of a character as well. Now, getting back to the topic of our meeting, I do hope the day comes when one of my books includes poems written by a male character, or by an animal character. Getting back to the story written by the girl, it is a rhyming fairy tale, which, when I completed, I didn’t even know it would be embedded in this volume. And it was only after I finished writing this fairy tale that I realized I wanted the volume to be the story of that girl. And that’s exactly how I sketched my character, starting off from the rhyming fairytale.”



    After her poetry debut, she published two short fiction volumes, and a childrens book. Lavinia Braniste, who published Interior Zero for Polirom this year, told us how she came to write fiction: “Ive had a passion for short fiction for a long time now, and I still have it. At first I designed this volume as a short fiction volume as well, but the fragments came to connect to each other more than I imagined in the beginning, and I decided to keep it like that. In short, it is a story that sprang to my mind while I was having an on-line chat with a friend who is a poet, Vasile Leac, who was in Germany, picking leek and pumpkins. I was envious of his exotic experience, and I suspected he would write about it. In fact, the motto of the book comes from this conversation, it relates to a question asked by Vasile Leac: “Arent we supposed to understand life?” The way in which he phrased the question was something I liked, so I decided to write a book about how we dont understand life, because I was myself in a situation where I seemed to be fine, but I was terrified at the idea that that was what fine looks like. And I find it hard to understand if I was supposed to wish for something else or not.”



    The novel The Curse of the Moustachioed Robber by Irina Teodorescu won in France the Andre Dubreuil award for a debut novel. The Romanian language edition was published by Polirom this year, translated by Madalina Vatcu: “In France the novel was received very well by the press and the critics. However, we also had reactions from the French readers, which could get lost in the multitude of Romanian names that the readers are not used to. However, these characters could exist anywhere, because it is about a place in Eastern Europe, it is not specified that the action takes place in Romania; the names of the characters are the only clues towards this.”



    Irina Georgescu Groza, attending the International Literature Festival in Bucharest, gave a lecture on her debut book, published by Casa de Pariuri Literare, a short fiction book entitled Beyond the Windows. Here she is, talking about getting back to writing: “The need to write returned to me when I lived for a time in Belgium with my family. It could also have been because I didnt have friends and had lots of time, and didnt feel attracted by work. Previously I had gotten to the point where I was writing even at work, Romanian language literature, and I think my Flemish boss thought those long e-mails were part of my work for the corporation. At some point, when I got back to Romania, I decided it was time to do what I liked doing, meaning writing. I found a great creative writing course held by the Short Story Magazine, a short fiction course. I started to love fiction, even though I had written two novels, I met writers I knew, I read a lot, and started writing short fiction. I forgot about economic growth, which weighed heavily on my mind when I was working at the corporation in Belgium.”



    The open readings from the books recently published by the above-mentioned writers were followed on the first evening of the International Literature Festival in Bucharest by a debate with the topic “About feminine writing: is there feminine writing or is this just an easy label for literary criticism and literary journalism?”







  • The Bucharest International Literature Festival

    The Bucharest International Literature Festival

    The Bucharest International Literature Festival was a roundup edition and included two public reading and debates sessions, hosted by the Romanian Peasant Museum and an event dedicated to students and staged jointly with the Department of Communication Sciences with the Bucharest’s Faculty of Letters.



    At the debut evening of public readings and debates at the Peasant Club , literature lovers had the chance to meet prose writers Irina Teodorescu, Veronica D. Niculescu, Lavinia Branişte and Irina Georgescu Groza.



    Translator and writer Veronica D. Niculescu tells us how she got round to writing Heading towards valleys of jade and darnel ryegrass, a novel brought out by Polirom Publishes in 2016. This is the second volume that Veronica D. Niculescu published in 2016, after Hybernalia, a sequel of Animal Symphony, with both volumes being published by the Casa de Pariuri Literare.



    Veronica D. Niculescu: ”It is a volume I had been working on for about three years and I can say it all started as a game. It is a story of a girl writing a book. And that character writes a book that is different from the kind of book I would write. I chose this strategy as I have always wanted the book that I write to include the book of a character as well. Now, getting back to the topic of our meeting, I do hope the day comes when one of my books includes poems written by a male character, or by an animal character. Getting back to the story written by the girl, it is a rhyming fairy tale, which, when I completed, I didn’t even know it would be embedded in this volume. And it was only after I finished writing this fairy tale that I realized I wanted the volume to be the story of that girl. And that’s exactly how I sketched my character, starting off from the rhyming fairytale.”



    After her poetry debut, she published two short fiction volumes, and a childrens book. Lavinia Braniste, who published Interior Zero for Polirom this year, told us how she came to write fiction: “Ive had a passion for short fiction for a long time now, and I still have it. At first I designed this volume as a short fiction volume as well, but the fragments came to connect to each other more than I imagined in the beginning, and I decided to keep it like that. In short, it is a story that sprang to my mind while I was having an on-line chat with a friend who is a poet, Vasile Leac, who was in Germany, picking leek and pumpkins. I was envious of his exotic experience, and I suspected he would write about it. In fact, the motto of the book comes from this conversation, it relates to a question asked by Vasile Leac: “Arent we supposed to understand life?” The way in which he phrased the question was something I liked, so I decided to write a book about how we dont understand life, because I was myself in a situation where I seemed to be fine, but I was terrified at the idea that that was what fine looks like. And I find it hard to understand if I was supposed to wish for something else or not.”



    The novel The Curse of the Moustachioed Robber by Irina Teodorescu won in France the Andre Dubreuil award for a debut novel. The Romanian language edition was published by Polirom this year, translated by Madalina Vatcu: “In France the novel was received very well by the press and the critics. However, we also had reactions from the French readers, which could get lost in the multitude of Romanian names that the readers are not used to. However, these characters could exist anywhere, because it is about a place in Eastern Europe, it is not specified that the action takes place in Romania; the names of the characters are the only clues towards this.”



    Irina Georgescu Groza, attending the International Literature Festival in Bucharest, gave a lecture on her debut book, published by Casa de Pariuri Literare, a short fiction book entitled Beyond the Windows. Here she is, talking about getting back to writing: “The need to write returned to me when I lived for a time in Belgium with my family. It could also have been because I didnt have friends and had lots of time, and didnt feel attracted by work. Previously I had gotten to the point where I was writing even at work, Romanian language literature, and I think my Flemish boss thought those long e-mails were part of my work for the corporation. At some point, when I got back to Romania, I decided it was time to do what I liked doing, meaning writing. I found a great creative writing course held by the Short Story Magazine, a short fiction course. I started to love fiction, even though I had written two novels, I met writers I knew, I read a lot, and started writing short fiction. I forgot about economic growth, which weighed heavily on my mind when I was working at the corporation in Belgium.”



    The open readings from the books recently published by the above-mentioned writers were followed on the first evening of the International Literature Festival in Bucharest by a debate with the topic “About feminine writing: is there feminine writing or is this just an easy label for literary criticism and literary journalism?”

  • The Bucharest International Literature Festival

    The Bucharest International Literature Festival

    The 9th edition of the Bucharest International Literature Festival was held between December 7 and 9 in Romania’s capital city. It was a roundup edition, according to organizers, that included two public reading and debates sessions, hosted by the Romanian Peasant Museum and an event dedicated to students and staged jointly with the Department of Communication Sciences with the Bucharest’s Faculty of Letters. At the debut evening of public readings and debates at the Peasant Club on December 8th, literature lovers had the chance to meet prose writers Irina Teodorescu, Veronica D. Niculescu, Lavinia Branişte and Irina Georgescu Groza.



    Translator and writer Veronica D. Niculescu tells us how she got round to writing Heading towards valleys of jade and darnel ryegrass, a novel brought out by Polirom Publishes in 2016. This is the second volume that Veronica D. Niculescu published in 2016, after Hybernalia, a sequel of Animal Symphony, with both volumes being published by the Casa de Pariuri Literare.



    With details on all that, here is Veronica D. Niculescu: ”It is a volume I had been working on for about three years and I can say it all started as a game. It is a story of a girl writing a book. And that character writes a book that is different from the kind of book I would write. I chose this strategy as I have always wanted the book that I write to include the book of a character as well. Now, getting back to the topic of our meeting, I do hope the day comes when one of my books includes poems written by a male character, or by an animal character. Getting back to the story written by the girl, it is a rhyming fairy tale, which, when I completed, I didn’t even know it would be embedded in this volume. And it was only after I finished writing this fairy tale that I realized I wanted the volume to be the story of that girl. And that’s exactly how I sketched my character, starting off from the rhyming fairytale.”



    After her poetry debut, she published two short fiction volumes, and a childrens book. Lavinia Braniste, who published Interior Zero for Polirom this year, told us how she came to write fiction: “Ive had a passion for short fiction for a long time now, and I still have it. At first I designed this volume as a short fiction volume as well, but the fragments came to connect to each other more than I imagined in the beginning, and I decided to keep it like that. In short, it is a story that sprang to my mind while I was having an on-line chat with a friend who is a poet, Vasile Leac, who was in Germany, picking leek and pumpkins. I was envious of his exotic experience, and I suspected he would write about it. In fact, the motto of the book comes from this conversation, it relates to a question asked by Vasile Leac: “Arent we supposed to understand life?” The way in which he phrased the question was something I liked, so I decided to write a book about how we dont understand life, because I was myself in a situation where I seemed to be fine, but I was terrified at the idea that that was what fine looks like. And I find it hard to understand if I was supposed to wish for something else or not.”



    The novel The Curse of the Moustachioed Robber by Irina Teodorescu won in France the Andre Dubreuil award for a debut novel. The Romanian language edition was published by Polirom this year, translated by Madalina Vatcu: “In France the novel was received very well by the press and the critics. However, we also had reactions from the French readers, which could get lost in the multitude of Romanian names that the readers are not used to. However, these characters could exist anywhere, because it is about a place in Eastern Europe, it is not specified that the action takes place in Romania; the names of the characters are the only clues towards this.”



    Irina Georgescu Groza, attending the International Literature Festival in Bucharest, gave a lecture on her debut book, published by Casa de Pariuri Literare, a short fiction book entitled Beyond the Windows. Here she is, talking about getting back to writing: “The need to write returned to me when I lived for a time in Belgium with my family. It could also have been because I didnt have friends and had lots of time, and didnt feel attracted by work. Previously I had gotten to the point where I was writing even at work, Romanian language literature, and I think my Flemish boss thought those long e-mails were part of my work for the corporation. At some point, when I got back to Romania, I decided it was time to do what I liked doing, meaning writing. I found a great creative writing course held by the Short Story Magazine, a short fiction course. I started to love fiction, even though I had written two novels, I met writers I knew, I read a lot, and started writing short fiction. I forgot about economic growth, which weighed heavily on my mind when I was working at the corporation in Belgium.”



    The open readings from the books recently published by the above-mentioned writers were followed on the first evening of the International Literature Festival in Bucharest by a debate with the topic “About feminine writing: is there feminine writing or is this just an easy label for literary criticism and literary journalism?”







  • New Year Traditions

    New Year Traditions


    New Years Eve is one of the most anticipated events worldwide. Although for some it means no more than a simple change of date in the calendar, New Year is celebrated on all continents as a transformation of time. In Romanian tradition, the first day of the New Year was known as Little Christmas, because most of the rituals related to the period were actually enacted in spring. Moreover, many rituals are associated with this time, such as Plugusorul, which literally means “little plough. Plugusorul is a specific carol which people, young men in particular, sing on the morning of January 1st to herald the New Year.



    Little Christmas was meant to reintegrate mans day-to-day life into the wider historical framework after a period of soul-searching that ended on Christmas Day. Carols represent the most important New Year tradition in Romania. In regions such as Maramures, in northern Romania, New Years wishes are still delivered in their archaic form.



    Many customs in Maramures are related to carolling, as carolling still continues once Christmas has passed. The period between Christmas and the New Year is usually known for mask carolling. The mask is an important element in the traditional mindset. It is an imaginary representation of the world beyond. They usually depict figures of old men, totemic animals or plants that help man reintegrate reconnect to the world of the living or the white world, as it is ethnologically called. We therefore have pageants of masked men, usually wearing masks of old men and veils. The old man mask is deeply rooted in ancient traditions. The old woman and the old man usually acted as mediators between the worlds.



    The old mens dance in Maramures is highly symbolic. The men form a circle and strike the ground with their staffs. They also touch everyone attending the ritual with their staff, which has a rich symbolic value. The dance pays tribute to the cult of the ancestors, who are believed to restore any unbalance in the world. Then we have goat masks. The goat plays a fundamental role, as it dies and is reborn. She stands for the old year that comes to an end and the New Year, which comes with its abundance of blessings. Devil masks symbolise evil. Their role is to warn and recall people that there can be no good without evil, just as there can be no evil without good. Traditional communities have always brought these elements together in rituals.



    In the north-west of Romania, in Maramures, groups of carollers known as “brondosi in Romanian go from house to house every day between Christmas and New Year dressed in full costume and wearing masks made up of sheep skin. They carry bells and whips and the sound they produce is meant to drive away evil spirits from the community ahead of the New Year. According to a pre-Christian tradition, a number of rituals were performed on New Years Eve to ward off bad spirits and persuade the sun to stay longer in the sky. These groups of traditional carollers are today a popular tourist attraction.



    On New Years Eve, they put on the costumes they have inherited from their predecessors and go carolling from house to house. In Moldavia, in the east and north-east, a similar ritual is known as the “bears dance. Young men dressed in costumes made of bearskin and accompanied by musicians and drummers walk through every street in the village striking their whips in the air. People welcome them into their homes and ask them to perform the “bears dance in their gardens as part of a fertility rite. The bears dance stems from an ancient tradition. The bear was in fact considered a sacred animal by the Romanians ancestors, the Geto-Dacians.



    A ritual we find all over the country is wishing someone best wishes in the new year while touching them lightly with the ‘sorcova, a stick adorned with artificial flowers. By this ritual gesture, a transfer of power is taking place from the vegetal to the human world. Other widespread New Year rituals are the predictions of future marriages. In Maramures, for example, young unmarried women go out into the garden on New Years Eve, climb on the log used for cutting the firewood and wait until the name of a young man is called out. It is believed she will marry someone bearing this name and coming from the direction wherefrom she hears the name being called out.



    Superstitions were also important for people living in traditional communities. It was believed, for example, that evil spirits are afraid of powerful sounds and light, so people would light big fires on New Years Eve to drive these spirits away. Also, people would not lock their house doors on this evening so as to give a good welcome to the year to come.


    (Translated by C. Mateescu)

  • Odeon Theatre Celebrates 70th anniversary

    Odeon Theatre Celebrates 70th anniversary

    Originally The Romanian Railways Workers Theatre, Odeon was open to the public in Bucharests Giulesti neighborhood in September 1946. It later on changed its name to Giulesti Theatre and in 1974 it was relocated to the well-known building on Victoria Road – the Comedia-Majestic Compound. In 1990, it was renamed Odeon Theater, at the initiative of stage director Vlad Mugur, its director at the time. According to historian Maria Magdalena Ionita, the name of the theatre was chosen, among other reasons, because initially, the architect who designed the building, Grigore Cerchez drew inspiration from the architecture of the Odeon Theatre in Paris. Furthermore, the repertory of the theatre was inspired form that of the Odeon Theatre in Paris.



    Bucharests Odeon Theatre has recently celebrated its 70th anniversary. On that occasion, two busts were unveiled: that of Elena Deleanu, who was the director of the theatre for 38 years, and that of actor Stefan Banica, who was a member of the Giulesti Theatre troupe and gained a local star status. Elena Deleanu was the one who went at all lengths to obtain a second hall for Giulesti Theatre, right at the heart of Bucharest, which is todays Majestic Hall.



    In order to mark Odeon Theatres seven decades of existence, an anniversary volume was launched, entitled “Odeon 70: A Historical Adventure and a Tribute. Its author is drama critic Miruna Runcan, the literary secretary of the theatre between 1991 and 1994. According to the author, the title was intended as a challenge for the reader:



    Miruna Runcan: I used the title as bait, because the book is not just an annotated database. It is a volume that celebrates the venerable age of Odeon Theatre, formerly Giulesti Theatre. On the other hand, the research process was a true adventure for me. There are scarce sources of information available. Some of them, especially reviews, can be found in the Odeon Theatre Archives. The most unusual period was between 1950 and 1960, right after the theatre was founded in 1946. I hardly found anything on the years 1946-1950, so I had to dig deep into the existing documentary material. But the title, I believe, was also an attempt to transfer, one way or another, the tone I strived to find, which is emotionally involved, given that I was born just across the street from the Giulesti Theatre. I took a keen interest in how theatre was born there, I was also interested in the whole story of the blend between the communist ideology which lay at the basis of the theatres overnight establishment, and the actual needs of the place it was born in, a place which has a tradition everyone has completely forgotten and that had to be retrieved.



    The text has a chronological structure, but the author took into account on one hand the political context of the moment, with the various distinct stages of the 45-year long communist period, so as to enable readers to set the activity of the theatre against that backdrop. On the other hand, the book underscores the successive aesthetic trends, the way the idea of stage direction developed in Romania. According to Miruna Runcan, the most representative moments in the history of Odeon Theatre, as they appear in the book, were the following:



    Miruna Runcan: One landmark was the 1956 moment. It is a turning point as regards aesthetic thinking and the outlook on stage directing. Actually, back then Giulesti Theatre was at the vanguard of redesigning the concept of theatre, with two young and very vocal directors, who were also very well-read on the topic, working there. They were Lucian Giurchescu and Horea Popescu. Later on, in the 1970s or thereabouts, there was a very good time for Romanian theatre in general. Dinu Cernescu was the director of Giulesti Theatre during those years. In the 1980s, there may have been a couple of high-quality shows, but all in all it was bad for Romanian theatre, just as it was for the entire Romanian people. The 1980s were terrible years. And of course, there was the period marked by a great personality, director Alexandru Dabija. Dating from this period is a series of absolutely extraordinary shows for the history of Romanian theatre, such as “And they put handcuffs on flowers, the first show by Alexander Hausvater in Romania, Mihai Maniutius version of “Richard III, “The Gypsy Girls, also stage-directed by Hausvater, some shows by Dragos Galgotiu …After that point, the choice is more difficult for me, because Odeon had a very steady progress. It is one of Romanias few theatres with a steady development after 1996. There was hardly any season without the theatre at least maintaining, if not improving its previous achievements.



    According to Miruna Runcan, the Odeon was the first theatre that after 1990 created a very diverse offer, going way beyond the repertory offer proper. It approached very recent plays, it came up with cycles of reading performances, staged exhibitions and initiated programs dedicated to children. For 20 years now, actress Dorina Lazar has been at helm of Odeon Theatre. Dorina Lazar has been a member of the troupe since 1969. Between 1996 and 2002 she was artistic director, and since 2003 Dorina Lazar has been the manager of the institution. Here she is now, speaking about the relationship the Giulesti/Odeon Theatre has had with the public all these years:



    Dorina Lazar: In Giulesti as well as here, the public is made up of people who love theatre. In Giulesti, it wasnt just the locals who came to the shows, there were also people coming all the way down from the city centre. That is precisely why a bus stop was created, which is still in place today at the Grant Bridge, so that people may get off the bus and come to the theatre. It is a faithful public. People who are now old have been coming to our theatre ever since they were young, they bring their grandchildren along. Fortunately, our shows are tailored for all age categories, and we see them coming, together with their grandchildren, for the music education performances, for instance. There are a lot of young people. Odeon has always been open to the young. We have not increased ticket prices either, so that everyone may come to our shows.“

  • The Gaudeamus Book for Learning Fair

    The Gaudeamus Book for Learning Fair

    For four days, the ROMEXPO Central Pavilion in Bucharest played host to the 23rd edition of the Gaudeamus Book for Learning Fair, the biggest events of its kind in the country. Around 40 publishers from across the country welcomed visitors between November 16th and the 20th to browse through thousands new titles, meet famous authors, attend book signing sessions and enjoy sizeable price discounts and personalised offers for every category of readers. Today we look at some of the titles launched at the fair.



    Poet and literary critic Ruxandra Cesereanu is also a researcher of political concentration camps. Her volume titled The Fugitives. Escapes from prisons and Camps in the 20th Century published by Polirom in Iasi in 2016 is the closing book in a cycle exploring that phenomenon. Also part of the cycle are the studies Journey to the Centre of the inferno. The Gulag in Romanian Consciousness and Panopticum. Political Torture in the 20th Century, both of which have been published in two editions. The Fugitives. Escapes from Prisons and Camps in the 20th Century, the closing volume of the aforementioned cycle, is a book about escape, which, particularly in the 20th century, was an act of defiance of criminal political systems. It might be said that Ruxandra Cesereanu’s essay on escape strikes a more optimistic note compared with the previous volumes in the series.



    With details, here’s Ruxandra Cesereanu herself: “In Romania, very few people managed to escape and most of them are mentioned in the book, but there may have been more attempts at escaping. I focused especially on two cases that to me were special, including the man who was my inspiration for the book. His name is Ion Ioanid and his book called Our Daily Prison, whose first volume, a seminal work for the genre of prison memoir, recounts the 100 days when he was free, probably one of the freest people in the infamous year 1953, when he escaped from the labour camp in Cavnic. I was also interested in his escape from an anthropological point of view, because his experience provides an X-ray of the human spirit faced with all sorts of psychological, physical, social and mental trials. Ion Ioanid’s escape also explores the transition from the state of imprisonment of a man the system seeks to lobotomise so to speak, to that of a free man, a savage man, his savageness being in fact a form of maximum freedom.”



    Another interesting title we came across at the Gaudeamus fair is Writers at the Police. The book is full of comic or truly tragic moments, resourceful ways of getting out of critical situations and unintentional self-incrimination and is a collection of statements by a host of literary figures recounting their run-in with law enforcement.



    The anthology was initiated by writer and journalist Robert Serban and features texts written by over 30 writers. Robert Serban tells us more: “It occurred to me that every writer has had an encounter with the Police one way or another. There had to be a funny or not so funny run-in with the police in every writer’s life. It was summer and the holidays were coming and I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to mention it to my writer friends. So I wrote to these 34 writers who at that time were active on Facebook, asking them if they would do it. I didn’t know how I would publish their texts, but I thought we would surely find a publisher who would be interested. What’s for sure is that a very interesting book came about, a sort of usage manual on how to deal with the law enforcement people. Most of the stories are full of fun and humour, while others not so much, especially those set in the communist times. Readers will therefore be able to tell the difference between the encounters with the police before and after the fall of communism. The police appear in a better light in the latter case because in most cases they are people who know their job and who are much nicer when they find out you are a writer, that is you have the head in the clouds. So they also let their guard down a bit.”



    Also at the Gaudeamus book fair, the Casa Radio publishing house launched a new title under the heading Great Voices Pull Back the Curtain as part of its Radio Library Collection called On account of Today’s Crisis of the Soul. Radio Conferences 1933-1943 by Alice Voinescu in the form of an audiobook. The first woman in Romania to hold a doctoral title in philosophy, an outstanding teacher of drama history and aesthetics and an advisor for the Women’s Christian Association, Alice Voinescu still comes across as topical and rational.



    The Casa Radio publishing house also issued a series of collections for the young public Children’s Radio and Goodnight, Children! Consisting of comic books, original book illustrations and radio stagings for children. Daria Ghiu from Casa Radio explains: “We always have a day dedicated to children at the fair. Some of our collections for children are in high demand, I’m referring to Goodnight, Children! and Children’s Radio, which draws on our collection of radio plays for children featuring voices of great actors. We launch these together with comic books and new illustrations. Casa Radio’s stand at the Gaudeamus Fair this year also hosted a workshop held together with a number of artists and actors. One such name is actress Alexandrina Halic, whose wonderful voice delighted us all when we were children. Another guest is Alexandru Ciubotariu, who is responsible for Casa Radio’s comic books and who coordinates the Children’s Radio collection. The challenge when it comes to the comic books is how to give a contemporary feel to a staging from the 1960s or 70s with the help of news illustrations. We have many fans of this type of audiobook, many of whom grew up with this kind of book.“




  • The winners of the RadiRo competition

    The winners of the RadiRo competition

    This particular competition was dedicated to the third edition of the RadiRo International Festival of Radio Orchestras, a unique musical event in Europe that brought together 6 orchestras and world-class musicians and conductors at the Radio Concert Hall in Bucharest. We received 198 correct and complete answers. We would like to thank you for your interest and hope you will participate in our future competitions as well.



    The winners of prizes and honourable mentions will receive CDs with Romanian and foreign classical music and fine arts works by Romanian artists, as well as a range of cultural promotion objects. The competition was organised together with the Nicolae Tonitza Fine Arts School in Bucharest, the Casa Radio Publisher and the Electrecord music label.



    The participants in the competition were able to find out the correct answers to the questions from RRIs programmes and website and its Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn pages.



    Before telling you who the winners are, lets have a look at the questions and the correct answers.


    1. Name the year of the first edition of the International Radio Orchestras Festival. Correct answer: 2012.


    2. Who is the honorary director of the 3rd edition of the festival? Correct answer: composer Kristjan Jarvi.


    3. How many orchestras will be performing at the 2016 edition of RadiRo? Correct answers: Six.


    4. Who is the organiser of the festival? Correct answers: Radio Romania.



    And now, lets find out the winners:



    20 honourable mentions go to the following RRI listeners and internet users: Lidia Dobrescu, of Romania; Dejan Mijatovic, of Serbia; Fritz Andorf, of Germany; He Xige, Xue Fei and Jin Tao, all three of them from China; Egor Aushev and Alexei Ihnenko, both from Russia; Adervall Lima Gómez and Antonio Pereira dos Santos, both from Brazil; Juan Franco Crespo and Juan Antonio Morales, both from Spain; Abdulkarim Ahmed Ali, from Libya; Mitul Kansal, Mohammad Shamim and Syampada Sarkar, all of them from India; Keith Simmonds, of France, who wrote to the English section; DX.R. L. Club (Mr. Najimmudin), of India; Sola Agboola, of Nigeria; and Larry Grabow, of the US.



    Heres an excerpt from Mr. Keith Simmonds entry: “We have been motivated to enter this competition by the simple prospect of winning the grand prize to be able to visit Romania which we consider to be one of the most beautiful and amazing of European countries! We have heard and read so much about this amazing land and its great people that we cannot help but be fascinated by it. So, whenever you offer a contest, we are only too eager and happy to do it because we know that the research will give us new and significant knowledge and insight about the country and its people.



    10 third prizes go to the following RRI listeners and internet users: Emad Ali Abdel-Wahed, of Iraq; Jean-Michel Aubier, of France; Ji Yuan, of China; Alvydas Alijosaitis, of Lithuania; Nikolai Matveev, of Russia; Rosa Chumpitaz, Peru; José Luis Corcuera, of Spain; Henk Poortvliet, of the Netherlands; Chin Fok Min, of Malaysia; and Christer Brunstrom, of Sweden.



    10 second prizes go to the following: Noureddine Ahmad Hussein, of Jordan; Daniele Giaccari, of Italy; Ihor Danilevici, of Ukraine; Ralf Urbanczyk, of Germany; Amady Faye, of Senegal; Alexandr Abramov, of Russia; Graciela Mastrogiacomo, of Argentina; Carrie Hooper, of the US; Chun-Quan Meng, of China; and Jonathan Murphy, of Ireland.



    An old friend of RRI, Jonathan Murphy of Ireland explained why he chose to take part in the contest: “Here are my answers for your newest The 3rd RadiRo International Radio Orchestras Festival competition. Thank you for the chance to win autographed classical music CDs, a real treat for us classical music lovers! It would be amazing to listen to Gabriel Croitoru play the famous Guarneri de Gesu violin that used to belong to the great Romanian musician George Enescu. I was fortunate to visit Enescu’s house in Sinaia in 2014.



    10 first prizes go to the following RRI listeners and internet users: Stefano Citterio, of Italy; Vitali Efimenko, of Belarus; Marco Lehner, of Germany; Thomas Bégué, of France; Fan Hongjie, of China; Andrei Kuzmin, of Russia; Luis Gerardo Pérez Loyola, from Mexico; Hans Verner Lollike, of Denmark; Grant Skinner, of Great Britain; and John Cooper, of the US.



    14 special prizes go to the following RRI listeners and internet users: our conational Alexandru Busneag, from Germany; Ivana Krickovic, of Serbia; Boumechaal Farid, of Algeria; Helmut Matt, of Germany; Christian Canoen, of France; Victor Lu and Guo Huimin, both from China; Nikolai Loghinov and Nikolai Larin, both from Russia; Justino Losada Gómez, of Spain; Sandra Graciela Espósito, of Argentina; Alastair Pamphilon, of Great Britain; Atilio Orellana Rojas, of Japan; and Najim Uddin, of India.



    Alastair Pamphilon, of Great Britain, wrote us this: “What prompted me to participate in the contest is my interest in the cultural and musical aspects of Romanian culture. I enjoy listening to classical music and thought by participating would enhance my knowledge of the various musicians who are performing at the 3rd RadiRo International Radio Orchestras Festival. I would also enjoy the opportunity to possibly win a music CD signed by famous Romanian artists as that would be a great prize to cherish especially from RRI.I enjoy listening to RRI as it takes you to a different world away from the usual familiarity in daily life and it is interesting to hear the various programmes on RRI which can enrich knowledge and is good for conversation with friends and family.



    Atilio Orellana Rojas, of Japan, had this answer: “What motivated me to take part in this contest? Actually I am interested in classical music, and I find very important the role Radio Romania plays in this field. This is my way to express my gratitude to Radio Romania. I regularly listen to Radio Romania to get news from the country. Also through the RRI homepage I learn about the Romanian culture.



    In turn, Najim Uddin, of India, told us: “I follow RRI broadcasts because RRI is our third eye to see and feel Romania, Romania history, arts & cultures, people & places and travel destination. RRI is my one and only best source to gather information about Romania. (…) What motivated me in deciding to participate in this contest is quite simple, being an ardent supporter and regular listener of Radio Romania International over the last 16 years I have developed an affinity for Romania and its people which I hope will one day culminate in me personally exploring this historic & cultural land and experiencing the warm wonderful hospitality of proud Romanians.



    We would like to thank all of you who participated in this competition. Your prizes and honourable mentions will be mailed by post within the coming months. Please confirm receipt of the prizes and their content by letter or email.

  • The Regional Choreography Biennial

    The Regional Choreography Biennial

    The National Dance Centre in Bucharest, jointly with the East European Performing Arts Platform from Poland organized in Bucharest, in the first week of November, the pilot edition of the Regional Choreography Biennial- Re//Dance — the first event of its kind devoted to contemporary dance in the whole of central and eastern Europe. According to choreographer Vava Stefanescu, the idea of organizing the event emerged as early as the autumn of 2013, when she became manager of the National Dance Centre, because the need to get the institution connected to what was happening outside Romania became apparent.



    The biennial does not focus on what we traditionally call dance, argues Iulia Popovici, explaining why she chose the name Choreography Biennial and not Contemporary Dance Biennial: “We live in a world where choreography is present everywhere. We have social choreography…as everyone is on the move. Choreography is present in our daily lives. The idea that dance can manifest itself only between three dark walls and a fourth symbolic one, made up by the public, or that it involves the participation of an artistic and professional ensemble, entailed by the concept of dance, is far from what is happening in contemporary choreography at the moment. There is a diversity of forms which are getting closer and closer to common people, precisely because contemporary dance has always been a niche art and stands slim chances to change.”



    The Regional Choreography Biennial brought together shows and performances from such countries as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Poland, Hungary and Romania. Mexican artist Cristina Maldonado is residing in Prague and participated in the Biennial with an installation-performance, experimented by one user at a time: “The Stranger Gets a Gift Service – Interruptor”. Cristina calls the people attending guests and not spectators, because they are invited to experiment the installation.



    Another performance featured at the Biennial was “Mothers of Steel”, a Polish-Romanian co-production, created and performed by Romanian Mădălina Dan and Agata Siniarska of Poland. The latter says it was chance that brought them together, when they started working together for a European program.



    The project “Mothers of Steel” is an analysis of the so-called crying practice, that is the practice of working with emotion and particularly with tear shedding, says choreographer Mădălina Dan: “We didn’t take any particular interest in personal areas, but rather political connection areas or the national identity level and what that entails; why we should identify emotionally with someone else and why there is a high chance of suffering because of things so close to us, relative to our nostalgias, personal histories, the places we lived in, the languages we speak… We both took an interest in this area. She took a higher interest in pathos, as it is reflected in monumentalism or propaganda, or what it is like to have true feelings for your country, which was a desideratum in Communism. I was particularly interested in the emotional area: what leverage we have, why we feel in a particular way and why we identify ourselves with the national emotional area.”



    The Regional Choreography Biennial is an opportunity for contemporary dance in Romania to reconnect itself to the regional contemporary dance, and the public at large stands this chance, too: “Anytime, any travel teaches you something about yourself, teaches you to reposition yourself, to develop yourself and to reconstruct yourself. This also goes for the movement of artists and of the ideas that artists generate through their shows in this area. If you limit yourself to references coming from a rather limited and close area, you stand slim chance of evolving and developing your thinking. It is not only fashionable to lay emphasis on mobility programs of all kinds. It seems very useful and valuable what happens in the east-European space, but not necessarily from separating the East from the West, but rather as an authentic and original thinking area, which reacts differently, when compared to market systems. I’ve noticed that the situation of contemporary dance is pretty much the same in these countries, and we all need pretty much the same things, especially in terms of connecting better with the public.”



    Romania is the only country in the region which has a national Dance Centre, devoted to contremporary dance.

  • Writer and Translator Veronica D. Niculescu

    Writer and Translator Veronica D. Niculescu

    “My writing is built with imagination around a trigger event of any kind. Heading towards valleys of jade and darnel ryegrass makes a plea, through Miranda Dortlof’s voice, for this particular kind of writing, for imagination and construction.” This is what Veronica D. Niculescu said about her novel called Heading towards valleys of jade and darnel ryegrass, which was brought out by the Polirom Publishers this year.



    The book was presented as follows: “A novel about departures, losses and emptiness, written with tenderness and interspersed with surprises. A book with a circular structure, embedding a fairy tale made of one thousand lines. Far from her native city, far from her family and far from the one she still loves, Miranda Dortloft has written a rhyming fairytale. The dense prose around this imaginary game reveals the real life of Miranda Dortloft, beginning with her childhood years spent during the communist regime, in a mixed family, continuing with her love story and ending up in a present of emptiness and depression.



    Veronica D. Niculescu: ”This time it was all clear to me that I had to write a long story, because that was the idea of the book. On the other hand, I felt like writing long, elaborated sentences, after I had written very short books, which were actually a plea for small things, for being small. When you are small, cuddling for example in a little chair, at the theater, your back at the stage, your inner world could become huge. It’s exactly what happened with my maiden novel. Maybe it’s not the most classical of all possible novels, in terms of structure, its form may be misleading for the reader, but that’s how I feel about it, that I wrote a novel in which a rhyming fairytale was embedded. Of course, when you set about building the real life of the author of the fairytale around the fairytale itself, you end up creating all sorts of contrasts. This is actually what the plea for imagination boils down to, what happens in her real life is completely different from what goes on in the fairytale, and yet some things there overlap. The woman author of the fairytale goes through a depression, she lost her love, she feels empty, she moved out from her city and no longer has a house and a family. But in the fairytale you will discover loads of treasures, jewels and suitors, and a wedding. Just as it usually happens in fairytales. But in her life, all these don’t exist.”



    Adeb, Veronica D. Niculescu’s debut book, a short fiction volume brought out by the Limes Publishers in 2004 got the Romanian Writers’ Union Debut Prize. Her next prose volumes (‘The Orange Orchestra’, ‘Red, red, velvet’, ‘The Animals Symphony’) received a great many awards and nominations. Veronica D. Niculescu also wrote two books jointly with the poet Emil Brumaru: the Tale of the Quickie – Quickie Princess, brought out by the Polirom Publishers in 2009 and Chestnuts are falling from the Chestnut tree, brought out by the Polirom Publishers in 2014. The latter volume received a nomination for the Cultural Observer Awards. In an interview she gave after her book was released, Veronica D. Niculescu said she would always have the reader in mind.



    Veronica D. Niculescu: “I might sound conceited when saying that I want a patient, keen reader. But I believe this is what we all want when writing a book full of details. Writers do feel a lot of joy when introducing details in their writing. And when they finish the book, they wonder if there will be any reader willing to dig in and discover those details. They eventually find out from the letters and messages they receive that readers did find those details. Which I think it’s great.”



    Veronica D. Niculescu is also one of the best translators from English into Romanian. She translated from Vladimir Nabokov’s work the novels ‘The Eye’, ‘Despair’, ‘King, Queen, Knave’, ‘The Original of Laura’, ‘The Gift’- for which she received a nomination for the Romanian Writers Union’s Best Translation Awards, ‘Pale Fire’ – for which she received a nomination for best translation at the Ready for Print Gala in 2015. Veronica D. Niculescu also translated part of Nabokovs stories and the correspondence volume ‘Letters to Vera’. From Samuel Beckett’s work, she translated the short fiction written in English and the novels ‘Murphy’, ‘Watt’ and ‘Dream of Fair to Middling Women’. Veronica D. Niculescu also translated novels by Don DeLillo, Siri Hustvedt, Eowyn Ivey, Lydia Davis, Tracy Chevalier, E. B. White.

  • Dance, an important part of the 2016 National Theatre Festival

    Dance, an important part of the 2016 National Theatre Festival


    The 26th edition of the National Theatre Festival was dedicated to choreographer Miriam Raducanu, “a unique personality of the Romanian stage”. The festivals official opening was marked by the personality of another celebrated choreographer, Gigi Caciuleanu, through an exhibition entitled “Caciuleanu” and a show. Two of the three foreign guests invited at the 26th edition of the festival have been Angelin Preljocaj and Carolyn Carlson. This years programme has included several shows in which dance played an important part, with choreographies signed by Pal Frenak, Razvan Mazilu and Andrea Gavriliu. We may say that “dance was in the air” during the entire festival.



    “When you dedicate a festival to such a personality as Miriam Raducanu, you dedicate it not only to dance but also to culture and beauty,” Gigi Caciuleanu, one of Romanias artistic personalities discovered and guided by Miriam Raducanu, has said. Born in 1924, Miriam Raducanu “revolutionized the art of dance in Romania by the manner in which she put together arts such as poetry or music, reunited (…) through the force and message of a unique body expression,” dance critic Gina Serbanescu has said.



    “The dance maker”, as Gigi Caciuleanu prefers to be called, opened the National Theatre Festival and also closed it with the launch of a book entitled “Mirrors”, with texts that he has written along the years:


    “I have always had the habit of writing on small pieces of paper, wherever I could find one. This is my way of writing down the dances that I choreograph. This is something I also said at the launch that this book is made up of dances, just like dances are made up of poetry and drawings. This is by no means a boring or difficult-to-read book. On the contrary, it includes poems worth telling. The volume is written in several different languages because I wrote many of the poems in languages other than Romanian. But I have translated into Romanian the poems written in French and I have rediscovered our beautiful language. And I wonder why is there Esperanto, when we have the Romanian language, that includes so many elements that could have unified an international language.”



    The first two days of the festival saw on stage one of the most celebrated European choreographers – the Albanian-born French Angelin Preljocaj. After “Snow White”, Preljocaj presented the audience a show inspired by a Chinese fairytale. The show entitled “The Fresco” had its world premiere a month before its presentation at the National Theatre Festival.



    Choreographer Angelin Preljocaj: “I was very interested in finding stories other than the traditional ones, which we usually use for romantic ballet, such as Cinderella and Swan Lake. I wanted to find out how stories are being told and what their message is in other cultures. And I came across this medieval Chinese fairytale, which is absolutely magnificent, as it approaches a very subtle issue, such as the one of representation or portrayal. Ultimately, this is the whole history of painting, a form of art dating back to the stone age, when prehistoric people used to draw hunting scenes on the caves walls, and up to the conceptual art of todays world. I find this history of painting and representation very interesting. At present, in the age of the Internet, we live representation in such an odd way. Moreover, this is a beautiful love story, a story dreamt by someone who falls in love with a representation.”



    Choreographer Carolyn Carlson, an artist born in California who later settled in Paris, held a workshop during the National Theatre Festival and also presented two of her shows – “Short Stories” and “Now”. The latter is built on ideas such as “dance lives and dies now” or “we have the chance to change the world now”. Carolyn Carlson: VF TRACK : “I love Gaston Bachelard. Ive done three pieces with Gaston Bachelard. “Water and Dreams”, “Air and Dreams” and this is “Poetics of Space”. It talks about forest, intimacy and immensity. And then, I was telling my class: I started taking the metro, and nobody was there. Everyone is working on their cell phone, you know this is Paris (…) and Im just looking around, I come home, everyones pulling out their cell phone. And I thought – is anybody here? Really? Why cant you just look at people, enjoy the ride. Now I find were getting more distracted in life, theres too many things. So I said, Im goanna call this piece Now.”



    Also at the 26th edition of the National Theatre Festival, dance was an important component of several theatre shows. Two of them presented on the last day of the festival were choreographed by Andrea Gavriliu and included in a show by Vlad Massaci, staged at the Sica Alexandrescu Theatre in Brasov and entitled “Dancing in the Dark”, after the famous film “Dancer in the Dark” by Lars von Trier. The second show, entitled “At Your Service, Fuhrer!” was staged by Mihai Maniutiu at the Aureliu Manea Theater in Turda, with Maia Morgenstern in the leading role. Andrea Gavrilius choreography creates an entire new world in the two shows.



    “In Dancer in the Dark we have tried to create an as expressive a sonorous world as possible, because when someone is almost blind all other senses heighten, hearing in particular. In terms of body movement, I tried to express this idea through the fact that the rhythm and the sounds around us become deeper and have a certain effect on our body. Thats why I chose a very suggestive music in which the apparently common sounds that we hear every day around us turn into music. At Your Service, Fuhrer! is a completely different story. It is about the destiny of a woman brought up in the Nazi ideology, but who wanted to do good, although this regime was catastrophic for mankind. In terms of choreography, I have tried to develop a language inspired from the rigors of the Nazi regime.”



    Andrea Gavriliu tells us more about the poignant presence of dance in the 26th edition of the National Theatre Festival:


    “Everything that an actor does in building his or her character includes a highly important choreographic component. And I believe this fact should be more and more visible for theater creators and audiences alike.”



    In turn, talking about that, Gigi Caciuleanu has said:


    I find it very symbolic and Im very happy for being part of this theatre festival, as dance is a particularity of the generality called theatre.”




  • Two Lottery Tickets

    Two Lottery Tickets

    The Romanian film “Two Lottery Tickets” directed by Paul Negoescu and starring Dragos Bucur, Dorian Boguta and Alexandru Papadopol is presented at the 8th edition of the European Film Weeks in Bosnia-Hertegovina with the support of the Romanian Cultural Institute in Vienna. The feature film “Two Lottery Tickets” was premiered at the Film Festival in Zurich held over September 22nd-October 2nd, winning the special mention of the jury.



    The Romanian comedy also entered the competition of the International Festival of French-Speaking Films in Namur, Belgium. It was screened in cinemas in Romania eventually. With a budget of only 30,000 Euros shot in just 15 days as an independent film, Paul Negoescu’s second feature after “A Month in Thailand” has scored an unexpected box office success.



    Director Paul Negoescu: “It’s funny that Romanian audiences reject Romanian films for various reasons: because the film frames are long and boring, the film deals with social topics, the main characters are often poor people, people belonging to disadvantaged categories or people who have legal problems, whores, brawlers, etc. In addition to the communist regime, we have all those ingredients and still ours is a box office number one film. After all, that is the most interesting thing because in recent years, the Romanian films, which have scored a box office success have been either Cannes or Berlin award winners or films in whose promotion a lot was invested. We don’t fall in either category.”



    The film tells the comic story of three men in a small provincial town who win the lottery jackpot but after a short while, the winning ticket can no longer be found, so the three men have to set off on a journey to get it back. Director Paul Negoescu tells us how he ended up screening the story of the three men.



    Paul Negoescu: “Dragos Bucur gave me a ring to suggest I make a film with students from actoriede film.ro. an acting school founded by Dragos Bucur, Dorian Boguta and Alexandru Papadopol, who play the lead roles in the film. In the beginning, I turned down his offer, but as he insisted on it, I accepted to make this film. I took it as a challenge; I knew I was going to work with amateur actors too, I knew what budget I would have and I knew the lead roles would be played by Dragos Bucur, Dorian Boguta and Alexandru Papadopol. I still needed an idea enabling me to make best use of all those ingredients. So, I came across Ion Luca Caragiale’s short story “Two Lottery Tickets”, which I didn’t want to screen or adapt. But I used its story about a person who gets a lottery envelope, wins the jackpot and then loses the winning ticket and starts looking for it. I used that story because it gave me the possibility of shifting the main characters to several locations and of having many secondary characters played by acting students.”



    Dinel is the name of the character played by actor Dorian Boguta in the film “Two Lottery Tickets”, about which he says: “He is the kind of man best fit to repair my car. He is a decent, honest, slightly naïve guy, who is sometimes feeble-minded. We can surely find such characters in real life and even quite often. Somehow he is the type of the poor but good-hearted provincial boy who drowns his troubles.” Actor Dorian Boguta tells us about his experience at the Film Festival in Zurich.



    Dorian Boguta: “It was exciting to have this film, a truly Romanian film, participate in the Film Festival in Zurich. I wondered if people with a mentality different from the Romanian one would understand something from the film, because I find German people different from us, Romanians. For me it was a great surprise to see people respond with so much warmth, empathy and humour. And I’m not referring to the jury that gave us an award. I’m referring primarily to the ordinary spectators who understood and appreciated the film although it presented a kind of society that is different from the one they lived in. I’ve also been pleased to get a lot of messages from people who want to see the film for the second time.”



    The Romanian comedy “Two Lottery Tickets” has been selected to participate in the Balkan Survey section of the 57th International Film Festival in Thessaloniki, alongside three other Romanian feature films: “Sieranevada” by Cristi Puiu, “Dogs” by Bogdan Mirica and “Scarred Hearts” by Radu Jude. The film will be screened with director Paul Negoescu, actor Alexandru Papadopol and director of photography Ana Draghici attending.



  • Bucharest International Theater Platform

    Bucharest International Theater Platform

    “The Other/Migration, a topic of our day-to-day lives is also featured by the Bucharest International Theater Platform, which reached its third edition this year. The event was organized by ARPAS jointly with the Bucharest Municipality, through ARCUB, the Bucharest Municipality Cultural Center.



    The curator of the event, theater critic Cristina Modreanu said that, thanks to the guest performances from Germany, Great Britain, United States and Romania, the audience had the chance to get acquainted with ways to negotiate the relationship with the Other. “How we take in, in our own homes, those who are the strangers among us and how we can find ways to get accepted where we are the strangers among others – these are the issues sparked by the new migration wave, generated by the escalation of armed conflicts in the Middle East, says Cristina Modreanu.



    Cristina Modreanu: The migration wave encompasses people who are very different from each other, people who reach a new territory, somewhere in Germany, Great Britain and other European countries. Problems are also different in each of those places. And the systems where they seek for asylum, or where they try to somehow get integrated into society are very different. Consequently, it goes without saying that every time there are completely different problems. However, they are highly significant for us as well, as we, just like any other European country, also have a refugee distribution quota. We have those people who stay with us as well, lost in a system that does not quite know what to do with them. We have chosen the stage performances with the clear purpose to present as many of those stories as possible, of those cases, for people to realize they are all humans, just like us, humans who experience trying situations, who suffer, individuals whom we should understand better.



    Those stories were told during the Platform, in various ways: through voice, rhythm and music, through theater proper, without spoken words, through a discourse which was extremely similar to that of politicians, through a performance guided tour along the streets of Bucharest, or through radio drama.



    Opening the event was a performance from Germany, Asylum Monologues, written and directed by Michael Ruf. The show tells, in a minimalist way, three extremely impressive stories. It is the production of a special theater structure: “Bühne für Menschenrechte / “Actors for Human Rights. With details on that, here is assistant director Lara Chahal:



    Lara Chahal: “We have a network of different actors and musicians throughout Germany and we do performances in different cities, and, for example, if we do a performance in Munich we look for actors that are based around Munich so they come and do the performance or. If we are in other cities, then we look for different people. So its always different people who do the performances. The texts are based on interviews that we did with refugees who came to Germany. In those interviews they talk about their experiences with the European asylum system. We want to spread the voices of refugees so that more people become aware of the problems they are facing in Europe. Usually after every performance we have a public discussion with local supporters and also refugees, who live in that local area and we always engage people in the discussion about what can we do about this. The feedback is mostly that sometimes they are shocked by these stories, because they didnt know about what is going on or they are already engaged and they want to do more. And we really want to engage people in the discussion and also make them talk about what they heard and spread the word and talk to each other about how they can support refugees locally, and their local communities.



    An analysis of the migration issue and of the possible aftermath of the phenomenon has been achieved by playwright Matei Visniec in his text “Migraaaants or We are way too many people in the same boat.“ It was a reading-performance presented during the Platform. The show was a prequel to the radio drama directed by Mihai Lungeanu, to be produced by the National Radio Drama Department in early 2017.



    Mihai Lungeanu: Matei Visniec has selected a description of the events, and not an involvement in that. It is a description of the relationships between those who manage the arrival of those Arab people, those who are into doing trade, into doing business, those who are into politics…at all levels – cultural, political, administrative, human… There are several sensitive scenes, speaking about the universality of death, when bodies taken out on dry land have no ethnicity, no sex, no age…And then, aside from our capacity to welcome the living, we should deal with another problem, relative to the dead people. And this problem should be solved somehow. Matei Visniec looks at it in a humorous way, just like he usually does, with sensitivity, with poetry and loads of lucidity.



    Artists in Bucharest have recently started to take an interest in creating urban exploration projects. One such project is Bucharests Sensory Map, a performance guided tour which uses actors and special guests, whose memories are linked to houses with memorable stories. Audio and video installations are also used in the project. Bucharests Sensory map was part of Bucharest International Theater Platform project. With details on that, here is the curator of the project, theater critic Cristina Modreanu.



    Cristina Modreanu: ‘Bucharests Sensory Map is a project enabling us to get to know many facets of the city of Bucharest, in various periods of time. I have also included it in the Platform as ‘the other is a notion we have seen throughout history. Its amazing to see people taking the tour, who have previously been unaware of the existence of a Jewish district in the city of Bucharest, and of the fact that very little has been left of it. They did not know there was an Armenian neighborhood, either, or that other types of population used to live here. Remnants of all that still exist and this makes the diversity of the city of Bucharest.“



    As regards the company from Great Britain which participated in the Platform, the migration issue was broached from a psychological standpoint. Winner of the Best Fringe Show in 2014, “Confirmation tries to get us think: what if other arguments, which seem to differ so much from our own discourse and prejudices, are just as true?

  • Bogdan Mirica’s Dogs opens in Romanian cinemas

    Bogdan Mirica’s Dogs opens in Romanian cinemas

    Dogs, Bogdan Miricas debut feature film has opened in more than 70 cinemas and other screening venues across Romania. Dogs won the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize in the Un Certain Regard section at the 69th Cannes Festival, the Transylvania Trophy at the Transylvania International Film Festival in Cluj Napoca, and two awards at the Sarajevo Film Festival. The plot is set is eastern Romania, near the Ukrainian border. A young man from the city called Roman goes to an isolated village in Dobrogea to sell a plot of land he inherited from his grandfather who had died a couple of months before. During his stay, he gradually becomes aware of a series of strange events. There is something threatening in the air. Alongside Dragoş Bucur, Vlad Ivanov and Gheorghe Visu, the cast includes Teodor Corban, Raluca Aprodu, Costel Caşcaval and Constantin Cojocaru. The director Bogdan Mirică also wrote the screenplay of the film, which critics believe is a departure from the Romanian New Wave:



    Bogdan Mirică: “I think an unjustifiable distinction is being made between art-house films and films for the public, which means that many people have become used to automatically viewing art films as boring and popular films as superficial. I dont think this type of looking at things is valid, considering that there are many films that enjoy both critical acclaim and box office success. I also think that instead of stubbornly dividing things into separate categories, we should be honest with ourselves and see where the film takes us. I hope as many people as possible can relate to my film, which may or may not translate into box-office success.“



    “Im not interested in a social critique of contemporary Romania. I am interested in speaking about certain typologies, says Bogdan Mirica. He tells us the idea for the film is based on impressions he remembers from his childhood:



    Bogdan Mirică: “I dont know if they were objective observations or rather emotions. I spent my childhood in the countryside and I witnessed some events there, some of them very brutal and arbitrary. I think arbitrary violence is terrifying because you dont know what causes violence and you cant predict that a certain situation will escalate. I had been thinking of this kind of atmosphere and a certain human type for a long time and at some point I realised there was a potential there I could develop in the film. As an independent filmmaker you know your project may take years to develop and have to be sure you wont get bored with it. I realised there were enough emotions in me to be able to develop this project without becoming bored or discouraged along the way.



    Bogdan Mirica wrote the screenplay of his film Dogs with two actors in mind for two key roles: Gheorghe Visu and Vlad Ivanov:



    Bogdan Mirică: “The discussions I first had with the actors focused more on the world I wanted to create rather than on the characters. This world, to be characterised by a kind of theatricality and poetry and a kind of nostalgia, does not have a perfect counterpart in reality. The register of the film is not a realistic one, the way characters speak is not realistic, the way they keep silent or relate to one another is not realistic either. So I had to make the actors understand the kind of atmosphere I wanted to create and I wanted to create a stylistic coherence. […] As a director you have many tools, many instruments at hand and Gheorghe Visu is a strong presence with a kind of halo about him and Im referring to the way he stands and forces his feet into the ground and in this way, his acting might have become redundant. So I wanted to balance such situations to make sure I reach my target.



    The film directed by Bogdan Mirica has been selected at festivals in Finland, Norway, Canada, Poland, Israel, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Sweden, the USA and Italy.

  • Ethnic Minorities in visual culture – focus Romania

    Ethnic Minorities in visual culture – focus Romania

    Between August 20 and October 4, the PostModernism Museum Association exhibited in Brussels a research project entitled “Ethnic Minorities in visual culture -Focus Romania. The initiative comes in the context of Europe-wide talks regarding the integration of migrants, and looks at the 18 ethnic minorities represented in the Parliament of Romania at present. The project celebrates the centennial anniversary of Greater Romania, to be marked on December 2018, while at the same time questioning concepts such as ethnic identity, cultural diversity and nationality. With details on that here is the curator of the project Cosmin Nasui.



    What we as researchers were mainly interested in was not to find new labels to attach to concepts, but to identify the multicultural factor and the extremely important contribution it had in shaping a young nation. Our interest was in reading how such a contribution turned out to be crucial in the extremely important moments when the Romanian identity was created. Another issue we were also interested in was to see what minorities lived on Romanian territory in the last hundred years and which of them were transnational minorities, that is minorities belonging to Europe and not necessarily to us. For instance, the Roma population and the Jews… It was also interesting for us to have a look at the neighboring minorities, those which came into being as the territory of the nation state successively expanded or shrank. In other words, at certain moments the Romanian territory encompassed neighboring populations, or rather, important communities from neighboring populations remained on Romanias territory. What we had in mind here were the Hungarians in Transylvania, the Germans in Dobrogea, the Saxons in Banat, very interesting communities, with a very interesting contribution in terms of visual culture.



    The exhibition, which was the result of research work and which was staged in Brussels, is based on representations in Romanian visual culture of the “old, traditional minorities, such as the Jews, Greeks, Lipovans, Hungarians, Turks, Tartars, Roma, as well as on representations of the “new minorities, which have cropped up after the 1989 Revolution, like the Chinese, British, French, Indians, Lebanese. With details on that, here is Cosmin Nasui again.



    “There are original paintings, graphic art works, sculpture and photography works, alongside infographics. This means we tried to display the entire research work in a visual manner and we transferred each of the sub-issues into the 14 diagrams focusing on exoticism, discrimination, autonomy, exile, colonisation. Images and texts overlap, so that everyone should find it very easy to trace and understand a particular topic, which we have followed for the span of 100 years.



    The “old, historical minorities were very interestingly represented in Romanian painting by such artists as Iosif Iser, Nicolae Tonitza, Octav Băncilă, Nicolae Grigorescu, but they are also represented in the photographs and postcards that circulated at the time. Explaining all that, here is Cosmin Nasui once again.



    “Visual culture, especially cinema, approaches these minorities. It is quite interesting to follow the so-called new wave in Romanian cinema, with its range of themes stemming from the area of ethnic minorities. For the Chinese minority we have Year of the Dragon, a documentary directed by Adina Popescu and Iulian Manuel Ghervas. For the Saxon minority there are a couple of films directed by Radu Gabrea, such as “Red Gloves or “The beheaded rooster. There are films, from fiction to documentaries to docu-fiction, such as Alexander Nanaus work, ‘Toto and his sisters, looking at the issue of an old minority in Bucharest, that of the Roma community. We also had a series of exhibitions mounted in Bucharest, focusing on discrimination. Again, there is an interesting series of monuments erected after the moment the Holocaust was recognized. They can be found in Cluj, in Bucharest. The first visual signs highlighting the process of recognition of the Holocaust on Romanian territory were the plates that were placed in the railway stations where the death trains departed.



    The Ethnic Minorities in visual culture-focus Romania project has also a continuing research component. The commentaries and testimonials of visitors will be integrated in future exhibitions, as well as in the exhibition catalogue. From Brussels, the exhibition arrived in Bucharest, and will be open over October 9 and November 3 at the Museum of Bucharest Municipality, the Minovici Mansion. Then it will travel to Brasov, Cluj and Craiova, and next year it will reach the Benelux countries.


    (Translated by E. Nasta)

  • The ”Gellu Naum” Festival at its first edition

    The ”Gellu Naum” Festival at its first edition

    For two days running, the most notable contemporary Romanian poets got together in Bucharest and Comana to pay homage to Europes last great surrealist poet and prose writer. Through the two sessions, organizers sought to initiate a dialogue between different creation spaces and ages, with the purpose of putting to good use the heritage of Romanian literature and its recent written culture.



    Apart from the sessions where guest poets read from their own work, the authors were invited to give personal answers to the question ‘How did I get to know Gellu Naum?, by providing recollections, memories, sketches and ideas, all revolving around the celebrated surrealist poet Gellu Naum. The host of the event, writer Simona Popescu, is the author of two volumes entitled “On Surrealism and Gellu Naum and “Clava. Critifiction with Gellu Naum. The second volume, which was brought out a few years after the first one, included a series of critical essays.



    Simona Popescu has said, quote “Being close to Gellu Naum for many years, that certain sense of existential dignity which is his poetrys vital principle became increasingly clear to me. He had a visceral need for purity and for that he was fiercely uncompromising with himself, and then with the others, he tried not to mingle with them, with their mistakes. His own errors caused him great suffering in (…) Being wrong meant to him straying away from the “core of poetic existence. The slightest instance of straying away from what he called principles brought with it imbalance, opacity, hostility.



    Simona Popescu also said that she had the idea of staging the festival in late 2015, when the birth centenary of Gellu Naum was commemorated (he was born on August 1, 1915), all the more so since Gellu Naums writings “created solidarity. Given that for their most part critics have rated Gellu Naum as Europes last great surrealist poet, we asked Simona Popescu if surrealism was something we could still speak of, today.



    Simona Popescu: Surrealism does exist, there are surrealist poets who write even to this day, there are very interesting groups all over the world. For the following editions of the festival, I would like to be able to bring over members of the surrealist group in London, of the Swedish group and also surrealists in Prague. Around the world, there are poets who present themselves as being surrealists. So surrealism continues to exist in literature as well. Therefore, apart from literature and prejudices, surrealism is immortal, just like Romanticism is immortal, and in much the same way as all literary trends are immortal. We are all surrealists in our own way, at least when we dream. When we dream, all of us are surrealists, just as we are – whether we like it or not –romantics, postmodern and classics. And these things are given a name, from time to time. Surrealism has always existed, but only in the 1930s it was labeled as such, when it was conceptualized by the French surrealists who had borrowed the concept from Apollinaire. And here we are today, still speaking about surrealism, and we shall speak about it till the end of the world.



    “Poetry is a form of superior dissatisfaction. It questions principles, systems, and hierarchies, at the same time rejecting vulgarity with its increasingly human face. While the unhappy people of this world were looking for those ‘terrible storms they could measure their strength against, ‘the others resorted to the bracing feeling of confidence offered by the sentries, overbidding their perspectives, feeding themselves at their convenience, to quote a fragment from My Exhausted Father, Simona Popescu writes.



    One of the guest poets in the Gellu Naum Festival was Nora Iuga, whose work critics described as being related to surrealism from her very first volume: “I am absolutely convinced that surrealists are born just like that, as surrealists. What I mean is that I dont believe that a surrealist poet could appear as the result of a creative writing course. Its true, poet Miron Radu Paraschivescu is the one who wrote the foreword to my debut book, saying that there is a similarity between me and Gellu Naum. Since then, such comparisons have not been really made in Romania. I was not really part of the Gellu Naums famous group of literary friends. I met Gellu Naum later, because his writings could not be found during the Stalinist period. I found out about the existence of this word, ‘surrealism, quite late, in the mid 1960s. Actually, it was then that I read the first poem by Gellu Naum, called Athanor. I read it and I felt as if I was electrocuted, perplexed, because I did not understand much, but I loved it. I had never read anything like that in my whole life and I had no idea that anybody could think or write like that, without apparent meaning, but with such vibrant beauty and feeling of the unexpected. To me, it was the moment when I became aware that I usually preferred the intangible, that is something that resembles nothing else and what remains incomprehensible, because this is where the great mystery lies. And the great mystery is what dominates our lives.