« Folk costumes blend complicated embroideries and vivid colors in models that usually represent conventional flowers and animals (Walachia and Oltenia) or geometrical shapes (Transylvania). Each region has its representative costumes. But everywhere, women wear colored head-kerchiefs, and men, caps of lamb’s wool. In Maramures, these caps are very tall, without brims and decorated in various models. They are known as ‘clop’ ». http://iloveromania.com/attractions/romanian-traditions/

 

THE FOUR SEASONS ROMANIAN BOOK

JUNE 23, 2011, 6.30 p.m. – CRR AUDITORIUM
Folk entertainment in 4 parts

 

I write here some notes about my initial intention. I had wanted for a long time to produce a show that evoked what I had known as a child. I have always been drawn to the culture of youth (literature, music, puppets, games). What could be more fascinating than rediscovering the magic of your youth’s books? announced my show project in October 2009. A summer trip to Romania facilitate me to build up a documentary collection dealing with Romanian folklore. From the start of the school year, I offered the teachers scores supported by commentaries, visual or sound documents illustrating Romanian traditions. I thus attempted an approach that could be described as « ethno-musical ». I started from what I knew best, sacred and secular choral music.

I also consulted compatriots in order to support the details of the cultural facts that I wanted to stage and to clarify the performance of certain musical parts.

 

As soon as a scene took shape in my mind and I visualized it, I wrote down my needs, material or technical difficulties and diagrams for each painting. Each season had to have its own color, atmosphere, character, and characters (the students played different roles depending on the scenes). Each painting was the bearer of specific symbols, forms and artistic or literary notions:

The Sacred for Winter
The Comic for Spring
« Street theater » during the summer (dances and large puppets)
The Allegory for Autumn (the bestiary, the metamorphosis of the goat).