On our first day, we had finally left Braşov just after 11am and made it to Calimaneşti around 16pm, slightly late for a festival which we knew started at three. Sure enough, at the very centru of the very small town was a nice looking hotel with hundreds of people out front most of whom were in costume.

The first thing I noticed was a heavy police presence, which I am certainly not accustomed to. Cops seemed to be crawling over the place like ants on candy. I snapped a couple photos.

There were another couple dozen police milling about this small affair, some of whom were the communitara dressed in black commando outfits with large semi-automatic rifles. Although I found the number of police to be extraordinarily high, I should point out there was no menacing feeling in the air as a result of the authoritarian swarm. The police were casually observant and seemed to be enjoying themselves while guarding against pickpockets and the like.

A tip for travellers: Don’t kill yourself trying to show up exactly on time to Romanian events. I’m slowly building a pile of evidence that shows Romanian event organizers generally like to give long speeches before any activity takes place. Not only that, but they seem to be occassionally indebted to other society players and hence feel obligated to let those people give long speeches as well.

I felt bad for all the young adults and kids dressed up in their regional attire standing under the brutal oppression of a rather hot soare, while the various speakers prattled on endlessly. The contents of the speeches were good stuff: unity, diversity, tolerance, acceptance and the like. It’s just that each person seemed to repeat the same things as the last speaker and the kids stopped paying attention over an hour ago.

I had positioned myself on an elevated patio running lengthwise across the hotel. This seemed to give me both a better view from slightly above as well as some shady relief from the sun. Once the nearly two-hours of speeches were finished, the real event got underway with a hurried bang.

Onlookers in the audience rushed for better views and quickly piled up in front of my location. This blocked my view of the first dancing set and ruined most of my shots. Here is the best one left featuring the guys wearing the black lambs wool caciula (kah-CHOO-lah), which is my favorite of all the Romanian hats, and ladies wearing the camaşa increţita blouse. I believe they may have been from Argeş.

Realizing I’d end up with photographs if I didn’t move, I abruptly left my perch in mid-dance and took up a new position about 180-degrees from where I had been, as there was the tiniest of openings in the packed crowd of entralled onlookers. I stood directly between the proud elderly people who loudly applauded the preservation of culture and the immature teenagers giggling in disbelief at this non-MTV style of music and dancing.

From my new vantage point, I had a much better chance to freezeframe moments of this rural, traditional festival with its amazing variety of Romanian traditional clothing. I also had the wherewithall to realize I attracted a fair amount of my attention, being one of the two only tourists in the town and certainly the only with a huge lens strapped to my camera.

Now, the dancing was apparently part of a judged competition. At the top of the hotel stairs, the organizers, judges and local dignitaries stood looking directly down at the active dancing group to note each performance carefully. Hence, the dancers would move themselves directly in view of the judges.

This was a poor choice on the part of the organizers because it resulted in the dancers having their backs to the audience the overwhelming majority of the time. Depending on the style of dances, the audience would get to see maybe as much as 35% face time while other troupes never turned around at all, leaving us only their backsides. Pity the judges hadn’t made better arrangements.

The next group was from Harghita and had a lot of boot-slapping footwork for the men, while the women twirled their black and red striped dresses. I’m pretty sure they were comprised of mostly ethnic Hungarians. Possibly Szekely.

It was hard to keep track of where the various groups were from, but it appeared to be a judeţ-on-judeţ level competition. Here are more dancers in traditional outfits from largely ethnic Romanian counties. This next group may possibly be from the Sibiu area. In the first picture, the women spin and twirl as the men jump kick into the air, extending their right leg fully up to shoulder level and slap their boots. Impressive stuff.

This group is from the Olt judeţ (county/province). Their costumes made extensive use of beads, tassles and feathers. While they may not have been the most acrobatic, they were certainly among the most colorful bunch and had some rhythmic chants.

The next group had the shortest dancing set. Plus they never turned around even once, which meant poor photographic opportunities. I’m not exactly sure which judeţ they are from, but I am reasonably confident they originate from the Muntenia region.

Sadly, I am once again unsure of where this next group hails from. Their costumes look similar to ones seen in Buziaş of the northern Banat area, but they may very well be from Dolj in Oltenia as well. That’ll learn me to write things down, instead of assuming I’ll remember. Anywho, these folks had bright color costumes and a beautiful dance routine that I would have ranked 2nd best of the competition.

There was a great group of little kids. They looked very cute in their costumes and had a surprisingly good dance set, even if they didn’t get much face time with the crowd. I think they were probably not from too far away, given their age. Possibly Gorj, but I can’t be certain.

I’m not certain if the next group was from the Muntenia region, but I do know they easily had the best choreographed dance routine and high-spirited dance music of the entire festival. Everyone seemed faily captivated by their amazing performance as the violins, cellos, and accordians of live musicians blazed away in the late afternoon sun.

Then game some guests from Grecia, who came to demonstrate an example of traditional Greek dancing. The dance capitan was a very experienced artisan and the music was quite nice. I think the Romanian audience seemed to enjoy the show.

Throughout all the speeches and dancing festivities, there had been a palpable tension lingering in the air over the presence of Turks. It seems as though the Calimaneşti locals wondered who in the world would invite Turkish dancers to a Romanian festvial and why. Not to mention, wasn’t it curious these people din Turcia bothered to show?

Not quite hostile, but definitely tense and intently peculiar.

As their time to dance came closer, the Turks began to increasingly display an air of discipline, confidence, and pride. The looked and felt every part the experienced professional about to conquer the hearts of audience with their skill. The men came out first as the music worked into a mysterious oriental horn seemingly more eastern than manele.

An unfortunate technical glitch interrupted the Turkish music with painful feedback, but as the soundsystem was adjusted the Turkish drummer almost immediately stepped in to beat out the rhythm and the male dancers kept their composure without losing a step despite the annoyance.

When the girls came out, the music was working again and melodies turned a distinctly oriental flavor. The Turkish girls mesmorized the audience with a expressly sexy display as every little Romanian girl I could see was staring in wonder and mimicking each movement of their routine on the sidelines.

As the show went on, it seems the skeptical Romanians were being won over by the impressive skill of their Turkish guests.

Afterward, the local crowds gave one of the loudest displays of appreciation for the dancers from Turkey. They’d been accepted and respected by the gathered Romanians at Cantecele Oltului in Calimaneşti. And the Turks were happy to be well-received by their hosts.

And then came the brief announcement for the home team. The crowd became visibly and audibly excited to see the presentation of the homegrown dancers from Valcea, Oltenia, Romania. Flattered but not nervous, they came front and center to put on a very colorful and lively demonstration of local costume and folk dancing for the enthusiastic onlookers.

Hearty cheers rang out as their performance ended in a standing ovation. As soon as they exited off to the side, the organizers announced an interethnic, citywide, tourist-friendly hora. And indeed hundreds of folks linked arms as the live band played some really great muzica populare to motivate their feet. It seems the mayor was a bit preoccupied with inspecting the, er, “talent” of the girls…

After the large hora dancing, the festival was adjourned so dancers could rest up before the festivities continued a ways down the street at Casa Cultura, where vendors sold food and drink for the growing evening revelers. Not wanting to be left behind, we moseyed mai inainte pe strada la parcul cu the Cultural House…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006 at 8:08 pm and is filed under Arts, Living, Travel Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.