The ethnochoreologist Anca Giurchescu was born in Bucharest, Romania, in 1930. In the 1950s, she began her professional career at the Constantin Brăiloiu Institute for Ethnography and Folklore in Bucharest, where she dedicated herself to the collection and documentation of traditional dance. In 1962, she became a member of the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM).¹ She remained actively engaged in its Study Group for Ethnochoreology until her death in 2015. Through her longstanding commitment and her imaginative, methodologically sound research, Anca Giurchescu played a pivotal role in establishing and advancing the field of ethnochoreology both theoretically and methodologically.²

From early on, Anca began studying Căluş, a ritual involving dance and music performed during Orthodox Pentecost. Once widespread across Romania, the ritual is today mainly practiced in the southern and central parts of the country. Over many years, she conducted fieldwork in the Oltenia region of southern Romania, where she was able to closely observe the interplay between continuity and change – how the ritual preserved elements from centuries past, while simultaneously undergoing constant transformation and reinterpretation.³

In 1979, Anca fled Nicolae Ceauşescu“s Romania with her husband and daughter, settling in Copenhagen. There, she continued her work within the ICTM, serving as Chair of the Study Group on Ethnochoreology from 1998 to 2006, and from 1999 to 2005 also as Secretary of the Study Group on Music and Minorities. After the fall of the Ceauşescu regime in 1989, she returned to Romania with her family for a few years, but later resettled in Copenhagen, where she lived until her death.

I first met Anca at the ICTM World Conference held in Stockholm and Helsinki in 1985. At the time, I was a newly admitted doctoral student in ethnology at Stockholm University, having just begun my dissertation on music and dance practices among Yugoslav migrants in Stockholm.⁴ At the conference, Anca presented a paper on the roles and positions of men and women at dance events in northern Romania, emphasizing the importance of analyzing not only the visible and apparent, but also that which lies hidden beneath the surface. Her analysis of the relationship between visible and invisible power — between what she described as “power and charm” – made a deep and lasting impression on me. Here, as in much of her work, she successfully combined rich, detailed empirical observations with analytical clarity and broad socio-cultural and theoretical perspectives.⁵

When Anca began her career as a folk dance researcher in Romania, origins and historical background were central epistemological concerns, as were the dances“ motifs, form, and structure. In the 1970s and 1980s, a wave of interest in contemporary expressive culture swept through ethnomusicology and ethnochoreology, a wave that also influenced young scholars in Eastern Europe, among them Anca Giurchescu. From then on, her work has consistently focused on the act of dancing, emphasizing not only the dances, but also the performance, interaction, and meaning embedded in the event. Inevitably, this meant that the event and its contemporary socio-cultural setting became central. In this respect, her work exemplifies a significant epistemological and methodological shift within ethnochoreology – from studying dance and music as isolated cultural artifacts within a historical paradigm, to analyzing music-making and dancing as ongoing processes, socially embedded events, imbued with meaning also beyond the observed events. As a methodological consequence, the dance event came to occupy a central place in Anca“s ethnography – not merely as “context” providing background knowledge, but as text: a foundational unit of observation and analysis.

In her article on Căluş, there are clear traces of all of these intellectual threads: the historical background, the motives, structures and forms of the dance, the ritual as meaningful dance event, and the social, cultural, and political functions and significances of dancing in contemporary Romania. Furthermore, the article also reflects Anca“s particular interest in what happens when folk dancing is transferred to the stage, choreographed, and presented in radically new contexts – at festivals, competitions, and on television. This concern forms a consistent thematic thread in her work on Căluş. Fig. 1.

Anca Giurchescu during fieldwork in Optaşi-Măgura, Oltenia, Romania, 1993. Photo: Owe Ronström

After the ICTM conference in Stockholm/Helsinki, I initiated an intensive fieldwork on dancing and music-making among Yugoslav immigrants in Stockholm. During this time, I became a member of the Study Group on Ethnochoreology, where I had the opportunity to meet and be inspired by Anca through numerous workshops and conferences on traditional dance and music.

In 1993, Anca organized an international, interdisciplinary fieldwork experiment to study the ritual aspects of Căluş in several villages where she had conducted previous fieldwork since the 1960s – in the municipalities of Optaşi-Măgura and Osica de Sus in Oltenia. A dozen dance scholars from various countries participated, myself included. Over a week around Pentecost, we observed the different phases of the ritual – the preparations, rehearsals, performances, and the closing. We interviewed participants, villagers, and visiting spectators, we documented music and dance performances through audio and video recordings.

The field experiment and the attention sparked by the presence of music and dance scholars from several countries in Romanian villages had a number of consequences. One immediate result was that we, the participating researchers, gained direct experience and deeper knowledge of the complex, multifaceted ritual, which we later could draw upon to inform lectures, conference presentations, and scholarly articles. Thereby, the Căluş ritual received increased international visibility and recognition.

Another consequence was that the villages involved were able to position themselves as particularly authentic custodians and performers of the ritual. When the prestigious Smithsonian Festival in Washington, D.C. decided to feature Romanian music and dance under the theme “Gateways to Romania” in 1999, the role of curator was assigned to the American ethnochoreologist Colin Quigley, one of the scholars who had taken part in the Oltenia fieldwork.⁶ Through his mediation, a group of căluşari – dancers and musicians – from Optaşi-Măgura were invited to perform at the festival, which further confirmed and enhanced the status of these communities as traditionbearers.

In Romania, Căluş had already long since been adapted for the stage, becoming a virtuosic showcase for professional folk dance ensembles, and a national emblem prominently featured at festivals both at home and abroad. The increased international visibility and prestige generated by the fieldwork experiment and the Smithsonian Festival performance further reinforced this position. These developments ultimately contributed to the inclusion of the Căluş ritual on UNESCO“s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008.⁷

This, in turn, spurred renewed academic interest in the Căluş ritual, both in Romania and internationally. Earlier studies by scholars such as Mircea Eliade, Anca Giurchescu, and Gail Kligman were followed by a growing number of new research contributions from Romanian and international folklorists, ethnomusicologists and ethnochoreologists.⁸

For my own part, the 1993 fieldwork experiment in Optaşi-Măgura led to the production of a DVD film presenting the Căluş ritual, Dance for Living and Dead (2004), in collaboration with filmmaker Darya Karim. While working on the film, I realized that it needed to be accompanied by a written text that would explain the ritual, place it within its geographical and historical context, and reflect on its significance in contemporary society. Anca Giurchescu was the obvious and ideal person to write such a text. However, at the time, she did not have the opportunity to take on the task.

In searching the public libraries and my own collection of articles, I found several of her earlier texts on Căluş – short papers published in hard-to-access obscure journals and newsletters. With a light editorial touch and Anca“s approval, I compiled and adapted them into the article now published here. In the following years Anca and I used the article and the film for presenting the fieldwork experiment at seminars and conferences.⁹

Then years passed, filled with teaching and new research projects. Upon my retirement, I rediscovered materials from the 1993 field experiment, including Anca“s article. It is now published in Puls as a tribute to Anca and her long-standing work documenting and analyzing folk dance. But it is also meant as a contribution to ongoing discussions about the consequences of research interventions such as the 1993 Oltenia field experiment, and about the broader implications of the global festivalization and heritagisation of “intangibles” like music, dance, and ritual. Finally, it is intended to encourage further debate on the impacts of heritage politics more generally, and in particular, on the often far-reaching interventions into living cultural practices that UNESCO“s heritage listings entail. Fig. 3.

Link to Dance for living and dead https://vimeo.com/1138437038/dc939566ab?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci

Căluş is a protection, healing, and fertility ritual, carried out at the Orthodox Pentecost Rusalii, seven weeks after the Orthodox Easter. It marks the passage from spring to summer, from this world to the ‘world beyond’, and from the living to the dead ancestors. Căluş is deeply rooted in Romania’s ancient cultural strata. Căluş pertains to a large and well-known category of men’s corps customs, which include dances with swords or sticks used as props. Dance is one of the most important components of this ritual; it is through dance that the ritual acts are accomplished.²

Eighteenth century documents indicate that Căluş was at that time performed throughout most of Romania. To this day it is performed in its traditional context only in the southern part of the country – throughout the Danube Plain and northward toward the Carpathians.³ Elements of Southeastern and Central-West European cultures are mingled in Căluş. Similar variants are found in villages inhabited by Romanians close to the Danube in Bulgaria, in some Serbian villages, and in Macedonia where the custom is called Rusalii (Arnaudov 1917). However, the Căluş as practiced in Romania does contain distinctive characteristics that are specific to the Carpatho-Danubian area. Each of the variants shares some common features with the Morris, sword (or stick), and mummers’ dances from England and south-western and central Europe.⁴ These similarities include group structure, costume, implements (props), the role-playing of masked characters, and the ritual enactment of death and resurrection. The presence of these similar traits over such a widespread area in Europe supports the notion that this custom belongs to a very basic and ancient cultural stratum.

Căluş can be characterised as a form of communication between the real world represented by a given community and the mythical world represented by female mythological beings variously and euphemistically named Iele (They), Mîndrele (Beauties), or Vîntoasele (Windy Ones). Iele are the embodiments of old nature demons that may be traced back to the cult of Diana (Eliade 1973, 1995) and the Geto-Dacian cult of Bendis, the goddess of nature and death (identified by the Greeks with Artemis, Hecate, and Persephone) (Daicoviciu 1968:197–198). These fairies of the wild nature are known in Europe as Vila (southern Slavs), Rusalii (north-western Slavs), Vodka Pane and Diva Zen (Bohemia), Bogunki (Poland), Elben, Elfen (Anglo-Saxons), Wilde Frauen, Nacht Frauen, Holden or Perthen (Germans), Bonne donne (Italy), as well as the individual characters Irodeasa (Romania), Herodia (central Europe), Frau Holle (Germany), Samovila (Bulgaria).

The Iele were believed to be very active during the transitional period from spring to summer around Rusalii (Pentecost). ”They„ were supposed to punish people who did not respect the interdiction to work on special days in honour of the Iele. The role of the Căluş was to protect people from the malicious actions of these spirits and to heal those who fell ill under their spell. The Căluş rituals also served to promote fertility and fecundity (Eliade 1973; Kligman 1981:45–65; Giurchescu 1984:91–99).

The main ritual actors, mediators between the real and the mythical world, are a group of men, căluşari, supposedly endowed with supernatural power to protect the community against the Iele’s malefic deeds, cure sick persons, and bring fertility. The relationship between the căluşari and the Iele is highly complex. On the one hand, the Iele are believed to share many common traits with the căluşari. On the other hand, their relationship is also characterized by numerous polarities: male/female, culture/nature, life (healing)/death (illness), diurnal (sun)/nocturnal (moon). This highly ambiguous relationship follows from the fact that, in order for the căluşari to mediate between the Iele and the community, they must first come under the Iele’s possession. While under possession the căluşari are invested with supernatural powers which they then redirect in order to assuage the pernicious behaviour of the Iele and, in turn, to protect the populace. Further complicating this relationship is the fact that the căluşari, even while possessed, remain susceptible like everyone else to the Iele’s maliciousness. It is this highly precarious and ambiguous position of the căluşari, which requires them to respect and carry out the strict rules of behaviour prescribed for the Căluş ritual. In order to practice the ritual, the căluşari must be endowed with extraordinary psychophysical qualities. The Căluş dance alone demands a very high degree of agility, power, and endurance – qualities that are developed over a considerable length of time through arduous training, practice, and devotion. The fine moral and physical condition of the men is maintained by rules and norms which forbid all excesses, and which constitute the foundation for the organization of the team. In order to become a part of this closed ritual society, the group of initiates must take an oath to respect the various prescribed rules of behaviour.

The căluşari team is composed of an odd number of men (7,9 or 11), regardless of age or marital status. As in other men’s corps there is a hierarchy of responsibility: the vătaf (chief) who has unlimited powers, vătaful din coada (the leader at the tail end), and the ajutorul de vătaf (chief’s assistant), whose position in the dance is next to the vătaf and who can replace him when necessary. Another very important member of the group is the mutul, the mute (pl. muţi), a comic ”fool„ who wears a mask, carries a red painted wooden sword, and has a red wooden phallus attached to his belt. With gesture and pantomime the mute leads the ritual acts and also plays the comic. One or two musicians – a violinist and a cobza (shortnecked lute) or a portable ţambal (hammered dulcimer) player and recently an accordionist, also participate in the group. Fig. 1.

Zamfir Dumitru „Porumbelu„, violin, and Costel Cocoşilă, accordion. Hora dancing during Căluş in Vitaneşti, Optaşi-Măgura, Oltenia 1993. Photo: Owe Ronström.

The căluşari wear a special costume consisting of a white embroidered shirt, white trousers tucked into knee-high, richly embroidered socks, bells tied under the knees, and opinci (peasant leather sandals) with metal spurs called pinteni. Woven coloured bands are worn at the waist and across the chest. A black or straw hat is entirely decorated with sparkling beads, long fringes around the brim, coloured ribbons, and bits of mirror. Attached to the belt are embroidered handkerchiefs and babies’ caps given to them by women who wish to be healthy and have children. Each căluşar carries a stick. The mute’s facemask is that of an ugly old man. He is dressed in a ragged costume with a woman’s skirt over his trousers. The mute also has many other masks and costumes to use in the sketches.

The time and place of Căluş is ritually determined. In the past the ritual lasted from seven to nine days. It began on the Saturday evening of Rusalii, continuing Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, the following Sunday, and ending a week from Tuesday. Today it lasts only three days. In contrast to Iele who are active by night, the căluşari are active only during the day and cease at sundown. Their designated performance space is the village and its surrounding cultivated areas while Iele are purported to exist only in non-cultivated places such as riverbanks, forests, glades, mounds, and clearings.

Dance music, gesture, pantomime, texts, costume, props, ritual rules, and magical actions serve to carry out the custom, which can be divided into three lengthy sequences. ”The raising of the flag„ or ”the binding of Căluş„ takes place on Saturday evening. This marks the beginning of the custom and the constitution of the group. The ritual actions enable the participants to pass from their everyday life to the sacred plane where they acquire supernatural powers from the Iele. This ritual is enacted in secret outside the village in places where Iele are said to reside. Until the actual raising of the flag everything is done in silence. The flag is attached to a pole and consists of wormwood, garlic, and stalks of green wheat wrapped around a white linen hand towel. It stands for the magical Căluş power and is the symbol of the group’s solidarity. On this flag the participants take the oath of submission: to dance with great energy, obey all commands of the vătaf, and practice this custom for three to nine years. Nowadays, the commitment is only for the current year. The reason for this more limited commitment is due to the fear of not being able to keep the oath and consequently being punished by the Iele (illness, loss of magic power, all other kinds of misfortune, and even death). Once it has been raised, the flag must never touch the ground or be touched by a woman, or its ritual power will be lost. In spite of the fact that most participants in Căluş admit that they do not believe in the power of the ritual, I collected many examples where their actions contradicted their statements.⁵ The raising of the flag ends with a suite of Căluş dances around the raised flag. In south-east Oltenia a rabbit skin stretched over a stick (cioc) may be used as a substitute for the flag.

The second episode consists of a suite of Căluş dances and pantomimes performed in the yard of each villager who invites them. In the middle of the courtyard next to the flag the host places a bowl of water, some garlic, wormwood, rock salt, and raw wool. With his sword the mute draws a magic, protective circle which no one but the initiated may enter. The magic power of the circling căluşari is transferred to objects that are then used to heal animals and promote fertility. This part concludes with a Hora in which everybody takes part. This dance is believed to encourage marriage, bring fecundity to barren women, and promote prophylaxis when necessary. During the Hora the căluşari carry children in their arms or jump over babies placed on the ground thereby endowing them with health and strength. Fig. 2.

Dancing over a child. Optaşi-Măgura, Oltenia 1993. Photo: Owe Ronström.

The near obsolete practice of healing people, who were ”taken by Iele,„ (a nervous disorder) was accomplished by a series of magical actions and a Căluş dance involving circling and jumping over the sick person. In Oltenia, however, the vătaf chooses a căluş ar to be ”knocked down„ (doborîre) by means of lowering the flag over his head. This căluşar then feigns a trancelike state or, through belief, actually becomes entranced. He then dances rapidly with disorderly random movements, and finally collapses to the ground, symbolically taking on the illness. At this moment the sick person is raised to his feet and is ”healed„. At present the ”knocking down„ is performed rather as a demonstration of the căluşari’s power (Kligman 1981:66–83). Fig. 3.

Tudor Vancea and Nicolae Vasile performing as muţi, in the comic skit, ”The killing of a calusar,„ Optaşi-Măgura, Oltenia 1993.

Photo: Owe Ronström.

During intervals between the dances the mute occasionally engages a căluşar as an assistant in the performance of farcical, naughty sketches, which are extremely well received by the audience. The ”killing„ and revival of a căluşar is a variant of the well-known death and resurrection fertility rite. A vestige of an initiation rite nowadays occurs as a comical action: a căluşar, having supposedly disobeyed the rules, is carried on the shoulders of two others while the vătaf slaps him on the soles of his feet with a bundle of the dancers’ sticks.

The third and final episode is the ”burial of the flag„. It is carried out in the same location as the first and is meant to disband the corps, release the căluşari from their oath, and reintegrate them into normal daily life. The actions are similar to those of ”raising the flag„ only in reverse. At the very last moment when the pole touches the ground and marks the end of their connection with the supernatural world, the căluşari scatter in all directions and return immediately. They shake hands and greet each other as if they had not seen each other for a long time.

Conceived as a complex and meaningful cultural text, Căluş is made up of several expressive interrelated means, which according to subjective or objective circumstances, change their hierarchy of importance for the construction of what Algirdas-Julien Greimas (1971) designates as an ”ethnosemiotic object„. In essence this ”ethno-semiotic object„ is comprised of:

ritual objects – i. e. flag, magical plants, bells, wooden phallus and sword

These means interlock in different constellations and at different semiotic levels such as ritual, artistic, or entertainment level, giving Căluş its polysemic character. Presently, the tendency is to de-ritualize Căluş, by changing it into an entertaining show. From this perspective one and the same Căluş event may be interpreted by both performers and spectators, depending on their age, education, and social status, as sacred ritual, ceremonial respect for tradition, identity symbol, art performance, entertainment, or simply economic gain – all according to education, culture, ideology, psychology, interests, age, knowledge, et cetera.⁶ Căluş takes on not only one, but several meanings at the same time, as tradition and modernity, a ‘magical thinking’ and a pragmatic world-view exist side by side.

Taking this change into consideration the căluşari participate with the notion of impressing the audience. In turn, the audience becomes more interested in the artistic level of the performance and less in its ritual significance. Thus, most of the magical rites have lost their meaning. Released from restrictive ritual rules, the dance, music, costume, and dramatic sketches have become free to develop along innovative and artistic lines. In the past each Căluş dance had its own distinct function. Now that the dances have lost their specific meanings they function as a unit and often new dances from the common repertoire are added to the Căluş suite.

According to a local legend ”when God built the church, the devil challenged him by making Căluş, in order to see which of them will attract more people… The devil largely won, because the whole village followed the căluşari„ (Giblea 1993). Indeed, the spectacular dimension, inherent to Căluş, makes the ritual more powerful and convincing. On the other hand, belief in supernatural powers and in the efficiency of magical acts is fundamental for keeping the ritual alive. However, it is rather difficult to disclose belief in magic powers (as a state of mind), because of a deep gap existing between people’s statements and their actions.

Due to the ongoing process of change, many Căluş teams perform in both traditional and stage settings, seemingly making clear distinctions between these two contrasting situations. There are situations, however, when belief in supernatural powers is so strong that it persists even when Căluş is presented on stage. Such an example was lively discussed at the International Folk Dance Festival in London July 15–20, 1935, where a Căluş team from the village Pădureţi in county Argeş, so greatly impressed both the judges and audience that they were awarded first prize. The ‘Folk Dancers’ wrote: ”Douglas Kennedy had to search London for fresh garlic„ because the căluşari of the village, county Argeş, refused to go on stage without garlic attached to the ritual flag, believed to endow them with supernatural power coming from Iele.⁷ In 1975, Grigore Stan, the vătaf (leader) of the Căluş team that participated at the festival in 1935, told me that their successful performances were certainly the Iele’s deed (Stan 1975). Presently, the performers consider ritual and profane (the event in traditional setting and on stage) as two fundamentally different situations, passing with ease from one to the other. ”The real Căluş is that with flag, in the village, on stage is not tradition„ states Florea Giblea, the old vătaf of Optaşi and continues: ”When we dance on stage we are tired after few minutes, when we made an oath on the flag in the village we dance three days without getting tired„ (Giblea 1993).

The trait unifying both village and stage performances is the teams’ total and intense commitment to dance. The pride of being căluşar, the belief in the power of the dance, the spirit of competition, the confidence of being the best, are rooted in the traditional dance contests in front of the villagers – which once substituted the ritual fight – when two groups of căluşari met.⁸

The dance form is an alteration of plimbare, or walking sequences, with mişcări-movements in place. The order of the plimbare and mişcări is dictated by the vătaf in loud commands to which the căluşari respond with equally loud shouts giving the dance the excitement of masculine power. Amateur and professional ensembles perform these dances on stage completely out of context, and are used as such as representatives of Romania’s folk dance tradition at home and abroad (Giurchescu 1984:85–90, 102–107). In the context of staged performances for national or international festivals and competitions, and for state celebrations, the Căluş is presented either as pure dance or as stylised ”ritual„. The staged version dramatically emphasizes the virtuosity and skill of dancing. Presently this version is being used to replace the living traditional forms of Căluş, which are considered poor and less artistic. In a variety of ways, Căluş is manipulated by the media as a symbol of the unity and vitality of Romanian culture.

In general, the dances that constitute the Căluş suite can be separated into two main groups: dances exclusive to the ritual, and dances such as Hora taken from the common repertoire and ascribed ritual functions. The common dances are executed in a style consistent with the dances exclusive to the Căluş ritual.

The dances exclusive to the Căluş are part of the very large family of European weapon dances. Structurally they belong to the stock of men’s springing dances of the Carpathian area. The Căluş dances are stylistically distinct because they have been cultivated within the Danube Plain area.

The Căluş dances can be grouped into several types according to certain structural criteria and their stage of evolution. All these types are unified under an umbrella of pertinent traits. These include performance by an odd number of men in an unlinked corps, the use of a stick for support and gesturing, organization into suites, commands and yells, a great variety of rhythmic formula of movement (RFM) combinations, accents in counter time, and high-speed syncopated rhythms. Movements of small amplitude and strong intensity alternate with those of large amplitude and lower intensity; jumps, hops, heel clicks (on the ground and in the air), stamping, deep flexions, acrobatics, and image gestures are movements characteristic of these dances.

The southern Oltenian Căluş type, when compared with other types in this category, is less developed as a dance form because it remains very closely associated with the ritual. The suite is comprised of a varied number of independent dances, each having its own name and melody. In the past each dance was ascribed a specific function. Today these dances are no longer associated with their original function. Many of the image gestures used in the past, however, have been retained. A striking example is Calul, which incorporates movements that mimic horse pawing accompanied by neighing shouts. All of the dances within this type share a common kinetic vocabulary, based on binary, ternary (3/8), and asymmetrical (7/16, 5/16) meters, and they are generally of a simple structure consisting of variably linked motifs. Of all the dances within the suite, one called Băţul most graphically expresses the pertinent traits of this category.

In terms of dance structure, the southern Muntenian Căluş type represents a higher stage of evolution within this category. There are two basic suites performed in this region: several distinct dances grouped around a nucleus dance called Căluş or a single dance, Căluş, made up of large structural units performed in free succession followed by a Sîrba and Hora and some dances from the common repertoire. Characteristics of the southern Muntenian Căluş are movements done close to the ground, especially those done in semi-prone position with both hands and both feet supporting the dancer, as in a ”barrel roll,„ or in a kneeling position. The suite of the Căluş type from the adjoining areas of counties Argeş and Olt by itself comprises a suite which is always followed by Sîrba and sometimes other dances selected from the common repertoire such as Brîu, Joiana, Ampuieţii, and Bugheanul. The entire ritual is always concluded with a Hora.

The Căluş dances from this area have a complex structure comprised of three main segments. The first, called marşul (the march), consists entirely of walking and running steps. It functions both as an introduction to the dance and as a transition between the remaining two segments. The second, called plimbare (walking), is constructed of varied motif sequences which include heel-clicks, leaps, jumps, rapid changes of direction, and manipulations of the stick held in a variety of positions, all the while progressing in a circular pathway. Each of the sequences of plimbare have been given distinguishing titles. Mişcări (movements), the third segment, are generally performed in place and are highly virtuosic. As in the case of the plimbare, each mişcare also has its own distinguishing name. A mişcare is a complex, fixed structural unit likened to the point of the fecioreşte category (particularly as in haidău).⁹ The mişcări are comprised of an introductory fragment which remains constant for each succeeding one, a core fragment of changeable motifs which thereby distinguishes each mişcare from every other one, plus a constant, unchanging, final fragment (Proca-Ciortea 1978). In their native setting the căluşari teams might have 20 to 25 different mişcări and as many plimbări. The richness and variety of its kinetic vocabulary, its rhythmic formulas, and its elaborate structure make this Căluş type one of the most impressive of Romania’s dance creations. For many years it has been a common practice in this area for Căluş dances to be performed outside their ritual context as a spectacle. The emphasis placed on the dance as entertainment has strongly influenced its rapid artistic development.

After these general considerations, I will now focus on the way Căluş survives, is adapted and functions in the commune (district Olt), to where I have returned several times since 1969.¹⁰ In Optaşi, as elsewhere during the ‘revolutionary’ stage of communism (1948–1965) when mystical beliefs were interdicted, the ritual components of Căluş continued to exist however in a latent phase. Conversely, the artistic components, adapted for the stage, became important ingredients in festivals and state ceremonials, with hundreds of căluşari from different villages, dancing together, to symbolise the ”power of people’s unity around the Communist Party„ (Giurchescu 1987:169).

During the ‘nationalistic’ stage under the Ceauseşcu’s dictatorship (1965– 1989), Căluş became a symbol for Romanian’s cultural antiquity, historical continuity, and high artistic qualities. It was manipulated as art product, displayed by amateurs and professional ensembles at national and international festivals. In 1964 for the first time, a team of young Căluş dancers was founded in Optaşi to participate in state organised contests. In 1966 the process of adaptation for stage was completed by a non-local ‘specialist’ who choreographed the local Căluş dance suite. The plimbare (‘walking’) and mişcare (‘movement’) sequences (having many variants and names) were selected according to the virtuosity criteria, re-ordered in a stable succession and modified structurally, in order to coincide with the musical phrase. This patterned stage choreography has been perpetuated on stage over years and finally ”got into their blood„.¹¹ The main event for staged performances is the ”Căluş Festival„ of Caracal (created in 1969), a competition claiming its contribution to the preservation of the Căluş tradition. In reality, the festival was deliberately organized at Pentecost in order to hinder the practice of Căluş in the villages at its ritually prescribed time. For the cultural activists creating and reinforcing the ‘tradition’, the Căluş Festival was much more important than keeping alive the tradition of Căluş in the villages. To solve this dilemma two Căluş groups were organized in Optaşi-Măgura: one prepared to participate at the festival and another to perform in the village.¹²

Returning in 1993 to Optaşi-Măgura, after 11 years of absence, I was confronted with a large range of changes, which occurred in this span of time; many of them having a high degree of generalisation (Giurchescu 1990:55). A few will be mentioned here:

In 1969 the belief in the power of Iele (fairies) and in the link of Căluş to witchcraft was consciously verbalised, while in 1993 the original significance was apparently lost. The healing of sick persons was still carried out in 1965 and 1969. Presently it is mentioned only as a potential function of Căluş. The long range of ritual interdictions, among them chastity, are no longer observed, being substituted with more permissive ones.

The căluşari of Optaşi-Măgura are aware of the differences between ‘acting’ in the village and ‘dancing’ on stage. As they move from one context to the other, they change their behaviour according to the given situation and characterize their experience in both contexts in the following terms: Performing in the village implies the presence of the ritual flag and of the oath that binds the group. Dancing in the courtyards is influenced by the impact of the audience ”who look with pleasure to us„ (Scarlat 1998), the dancers, and by the changeable circumstances from one courtyard to the other. It is characterized by the freedom to choose the repertoire, by improvisation or creation of new ‘movements’, and by the comical skits played by the mute during the dancing intermission. The ritual space, described in the courtyard by the mute with his sword, is substituted in theatrical contexts by the stage where the căluşari ‘present’ a dance as an ‘artefact’. The dancers characterized the stage performance as being short, intense, fast and exhausting, ruled by homogeneity and uniform repetition. In blatant contrast to the performance in natural settings, the spirit of competition surpasses the pleasure of dancing.

The village of Optaşi-Măgura and the local Căluş were subject to two fieldwork experiments: one in June 1993 that brought ”the large world„ (members of the ICTM Sub-Study Group on Fieldwork Theory and Methods) to the village, and the second in June-July 1999 that brought the Căluş to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington DC.¹⁴ Fig. 5.

Plimbări (”walking steps„) in a courtyard, Optaşi-Măgura, Oltenia 1993. Photo: Owe Ronström.

In 1993 at our first meeting with the local ‘manager’ of the Căluş team, Florea Turuianu, a conflicted situation emerged, due to the discrepancy between our expectations for a ‘real, genuine, spontaneous’ event, and that of our hosts, who wanted to present something ‘beautiful, authentic, traditional’. I list a few ad hoc changes of the ritual made by the participants themselves, more or less influenced by the local cultural employees in order to create an idyll image of their community: Three Căluş teams from three villages of the commune Optaşi-Măgura merged to make up a large team with 15–17 dancers, thereby bringing together three leaders: the ‘ritual’ vătaf Florea Giblea (born 1930) still believing in the power of the Iele and observing ritual interdictions,¹⁵ Florea Turuianu (born 1954) the ‘artistic’ leader, teacher and manager of the groups, and Marin Scarlat (born 1972), former leader of the teenager Căluş group. This unusual situation created a tension between the two older leaders. The ritually prescribed place for ‘raising the flag’ was changed, and Turuianu proposed to us a ‘traditional’ place, in a ‘beautiful’ landscape outside the village. The truth is that the last five years the flag was raised in the courtyard of the vătaf. The same care for a positive image made the muţi at first to polish verbal utterances and control their body movements (imitation of sexual act) when performing comical skits. However, our presence soon stopped being a disturbing factor for both Căluşari and the mutes. ”We did our job, the way we always do„, one of them concluded.

I returned in November 1994 to record local people’s comments on our experiment. The presence of the foreigners raised the community’s (and the host families’) prestige and status. The videotapes they received from the researchers were showed in the village club, in private homes, at weddings and even borrowed to neighbouring villages. The Căluş of Optaşi-Măgura obtained official recognition by being stamped as ‘representative’. Everybody agreed that the presence in the commune of foreign researchers had positive results. Instead of disturbing the event, it enhanced its festive character, brought a numerous audience and helped keeping the tradition alive. However, questions and complaints as ”When will our Căluş be shown on TV?„, ”How much are you paid for this work?„, and ”They took our treasure and didn’t pay for it!„ proved that Căluş is also conceived of as a cultural commodity having a material value. This new perspective is certainly related to the researchers’ interest in Căluş.

In 1998, the Căluş team from Optaşi-Măgura was invited to participate in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, to be held in Washington D.C., USA, in 1999.¹⁶ Not belonging to the staff responsible for selection and organisation, I had the privileged position of the independent observer, adviser and confident of the group, recording their expectations and experiences.

The team learned that they had to perform ‘as in the village’, to be perceived as ‘real’ and ‘credible’, in order to create the illusion of reality in an unfamiliar surrounding. Forced to limit the number of participants to only eight căluşari out of many gifted dancers and two musicians, the criteria for selection were ”strength, endurance, commitment to dance, mutual friendship relations and obedience to the leader„ (Turuianu, 1998). In search for originality, the participants promised to wear handmade costumes, giving up the standardised stage costumes, and to provide an ”ugly mask after the old model„ and a red wooden sword for the mutul.

The political dimension of such a prestigious cultural project imposes its own interests and demands, which paradoxically contradict the theoretical foundation of the initial project. The surprising result was that the ‘mute’, the most important ritual and comical character of Căluş, which always had a tremendous success in the village, was left at home. The official explanation was that the ‘mute’ did not get the entrance visa to the United States. According to the leader of the group, Florea Turuianu, and the team members,¹⁷ the ‘grotesque’ behaviour of the mute, his sexual imitative gestures, rough dialogue, and ugly appearance, might have carried the negative message of ‘primitivism’ to a foreign audience. In fact, self-censorship, which certainly pleased the officials, is the expression of a stereotype inherited from the communist period, which tries to hide the crude reality or to present it under an idealised form. It is true however, that the comical skits enacted by the ‘mute’ out of the traditional setting and lacking the audience with knowledge and interest, may be misinterpreted.¹⁸

For the participants at the Folklife Festival, Căluş was neither a ritual, nor a staged performance or a reconstruction. It was a combination of all these forms with a strong participatory character that made it an authentic and unique experience: ”We danced on stage, but also on the ground with a cheering crowd around us, that enhanced our pleasure and commitment to dance„; ”People in the audience danced the final Hora with us.„ As in the village, the vătaf had the freedom to choose the set of dances he wanted for each dance performance on the Mall (Scarlat, 1999).

The impression of a real, spontaneous, non-staged performance was enhanced by the presence of Romanian-Americans who acted as insiders of the event. They asked the căluşari to dedicate the dances to the well-being of a person, and, as the vătaf Marin Scarlat related, ”everybody gave us children to ‘be danced’ for protection, health and luck. The audience paid by throwing money on the floor or into our hats.„¹⁹ Situated on the midway between play and ritual, Căluş was experienced by both dancers and audience in an ambivalent way. June 23rd the căluşari raised the flag on the Mall, marking the beginning of the festival: ”It was only a demonstration and the oath we took was not completed, because the real oath has been taken in the village, at Rusalii.„ However, the enactment of the ritual gestures and the oath taken on the flag endowed the căluşari with a state of ”responsibility, courage, and fear„ (Scarlat, Pirciu, 1999).

Thus, the ambivalent attitude emerges at the point where the căluşari apparently perform as in the village, with great conviction and argue that the traditional Căluş has been little changed. In fact, they enact a virtual reality, though with great conviction, as excellent actors. In order to enhance entertainment, the căluşari at the end of the ritual performed the well-known Periniţa (little pillow), a wedding hora involving kissing, which was presented as ”our oldest ritual round dance„. Marin Scarlat, the leader, changed the two home-woven bands across his chest, with bands in the colours of the Romanian flag: ”It was my idea. People in America should know where we are coming from. It was a kind of symbol„ (Scarlat 1999).

The Smithsonian Folklife Festival set the frames for a complex manifestation that illustrates the way traditional heritage is both preserved and modified in the present society. For the individuals the participation in the Festival brought along raised status, envy for the economical gain the participants had. The unique experience exerted a strong psychological impact increasing their self-esteem and the conviction of being not only good dancers, or musicians, but – using the mass media typified language – great ‘artists’, ‘maestros’, ‘prestigious creators’, or ‘famous rhapsods’ (referring to the violin player and singer Radu Titirica who accompanied them). Fig. 6.

Marin Scarlat during Căluş in Optaşi-Măgura, Oltenia 1993. Photo: Owe Ronström.

The Căluş of Optaşi-Măgura demonstrates the ambivalence that emerges from the globalisation of a local ritual, and the way people themselves conceptualise and manipulate it. Among the questions raised by this case are:

Should the Căluş ritual be considered an intangible cultural asset, protected, valued, and preserved as such?

Căluş is a polysemic phenomenon that exists in multiple forms, each being justified by one of the many cultural, socio-political and economical circumstances that characterise a community. It is possible that the Căluş will be performed also in the future, but then perhaps not primarily for the ritual functions, but rather for its role as national symbol, for the prestige and status it conveys to the community, and for enabling people to surpass the narrow boarders of a limited local culture.