Dancing Through the City and Beyond: Lives, Movements and Performances in a Romanian Urban Folk Ensemble

Dancing through the city and beyond: Lives, movements and performances in a Romanian urban folk ensemble Submitted to University College London (UCL) School of Slavonic and East European Studies In fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) By Elizabeth Sara Mellish 2013 1 I, Elizabeth Sara Mellish, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. Signed: 2 Abstract This thesis investigates the lives, movements and performances of dancers in a Romanian urban folk ensemble from an anthropological perspective. Drawing on an extended period of fieldwork in the Romanian city of Timi şoara, it gives an inside view of participation in organised cultural performances involving a local way of moving, in an area with an on-going interest in local and regional identity. It proposes that twenty- first century regional identities in southeastern Europe and beyond, can be manifested through participation in performances of local dance, music and song and by doing so, it reveals that the experiences of dancers has the potential to uncover deeper understandings of contemporary socio-political changes. This micro-study of collective behaviour, dance knowledge acquisition and performance training of ensemble dancers in Timi şoara enhances the understanding of the culture of dance and dancers within similar ensembles and dance groups in other locations. Through an investigation of the micro aspects of dancers’ lives, both on stage in the front region, and off stage in the back region, it explores connections between local dance performances, their participants, and locality and the city. It draws on multi-layer concepts of local belonging that interact with notions of continuity and visibility, local cultural norms, and performance aesthetics. This thesis follows the dancers through their ensemble lives, starting from their apprenticeship when they learn local dance moves and acquire a sense of belonging to the ensemble. It examines the role of the key choreographers as pseudo-parents within their ensemble family and the authorities that provide time-depth and stability through the maintenance of local cultural norms within ensemble life and in performance aesthetics. It examines the dancers’ involvement in local event organisation during the performance process, and concludes that the continuity of local dance, music and song is dependent on its local and translocal visibility. 3 This work is dedicated to Anca Giurchescu for her friendship and inspiration. 4 Acknowledgements As always in such situations there are many people without whom this project could not have happened. I am especially grateful for the help and support from the Municipal Culture House in Timi şoara, in particular, Director prof. Pavel Dehelean, maestro choreographer Toma Fren ţescu, choreographers L ăiţă (diminutive of Nicolae) and Du şa (diminutive of Brindu şa) St ănescu, and in particular Doina Anghel who has been a good friend throughout the course of my research, helping with complex arrangements and language translations. Many other choreographers, dancers and musicians in ensembles Timi şul and Doina Timi şului have kindly assisted over the years and became accustomed to my spasmodic presence, in particular I would like to thank maestro choreographer Marius Ursu from Doina Timi şului , and Doina Susan (Tanti Doina) from Timi şul . In this thesis I have limited the use of personal names to the key figures as it would have been impossible to tell this story without naming them, although I have generally referred to them using the familiar or diminutive form of their names as this is most commonly used by locals. I have not used personal names when referring to the individual dancers in the text, those involved may recognised themselves or their colleagues, but outsiders do not need to do this. I have not specifically referenced each fieldnote extract or interview, however, this information can be found in my fieldnote summaries. I would also thank many from various academic affiliations, in particular, at UCL-SSEES, my principle supervisor Ger Duijzings for his ongoing support and encouragement, and my second supervisor Professor Dennis Deletant for his support and extensive knowledge on Romania. I am also especially grateful to Anca Giurchescu (Institute of Ethnography and Folklore, Bucharest until she left Romania in 1979) for sharing her extensive knowledge of Romanian dance and for her inspiration, friendship and encouragement, Elsie Dunin, Professor Emerita (UCLA), for her friendship advice, ongoing support and encouragement and Speran ţa R ădulescu (National University of Music in Bucharest) for her support and friendship. I also thank my Banat research colleagues, Selena Rako čevi ć (Faculty of Music, University of Belgrade) and Simona Adam (University of the West, Timi şoara) for their friendship, and look forward to our future collaborations and research projects. Just because the focus of my ethnography is Timi şul and the groups it intersects with, that does not mean that I claim that the experience of their members are typical or that they are a model ensembles. My longer term involvement with past 5 and present members of folk ensembles from southeast Europe has given me a corpus of material to draw on which can help me in drawing out the typical and the atypical and provide comparative examples when possible. In this respect I would thank my Bulgarian friends in the London Bulgaria ensemble Tanec , whose company in the latter part of my writing up, has led me to revisit many of my original ‘assumptions’ regarding being in an ensemble. I have also been able to drawn on the experiences of other academics who have written on similar topics in southeast Europe and elsewhere both in their published writing and in personal communications. In this respect I would especially thank all the members of the ICTM Study Group on Ethnochoreology and ICTM Study Group on Music and Dance in Southeastern Europe who together hold a wealth of information on this subject. Finally, my family and friends who have provided long term support and practical proofreading assistance; in particular my husband Nick Green, who as my research partner was with me during the majority of my research due to our shared interest in southeast European music and dance, and who also has helped with the endless editing of this document, and my proofreading friends Julian Sinton and Ella Slater-Walker. All photographs in this work were taken by my husband or myself, and all the diagrams were turned into neat graphics from my scribbled drawings by husband. Where I have used quotations from Romanian sources, the translations are my own, and I have included the original Romanian texts in Appendix A. 6 Table of contents Abstract ....................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................... 5 Table of contents ........................................................................................................ 7 List of Figures ........................................................................................................... 10 List of Images ........................................................................................................... 11 Chapter 1 Moving through my research: in space, time and place ................... 12 1.1 Local dance and performing Banat identity ................................................... 14 1.1.1 Belonging to the ensemble and to the city ............................................. 17 1.1.2 From visibility to continuity in cultural performances .............................. 20 1.1.3 Performing local lives and movements: local norms and aesthetics ....... 22 1.2 Urban dancing lives: who dances in the city and why? ................................. 25 1.2.1 Fieldwork spaces and location: the city .................................................. 27 1.2.2 Local dance ensembles in Timi şoara ..................................................... 28 1.3 Being a researcher ....................................................................................... 32 1.3.1 Performing ethnography (I): being an ethnographer .............................. 33 1.3.2 Performing ethnography (II): active participant ...................................... 39 1.3.3 Being here, being there … being here and there ................................... 41 1.3.4 Recording and writing ethnography: the final account ............................ 42 Chapter 2 Dancing pathways through the city ................................................... 47 2.1 Setting the ‘scene’ ........................................................................................ 49 2.1.1 Proto-performance ................................................................................. 52 2.1.2 Funding, politics and value through visibility .......................................... 53 2.1.3 Timi şul : the visibility of local music and dance ....................................... 57 2.2 Leaving the Culture House: setting up the venue .......................................... 58 2.2.1 Ambience brings audiences ................................................................... 60 2.3 ‘Place ballet’ of cultural performances in Timi şoara .....................................

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