The opening of a department of Choreography in the Theatre and Film Academy in 1991, started to produce results two years ago. The academic training offered a large cultural opening to the dancers and choreographers that studied there. I had the chance to see some of the productions of some choreographers that graduated from the creation department and to read some of the diploma papers of some other students that graduated the pedagogical department and I was able to notice that some of them were remarkable. Being invited by Professor Raluca Ianegic to see her first and third year' students' choreographic creation exam I had an extremely pleasant surprise. I had the chance of noticing first of all that many of the students accumulated knowledge essential for a creative future in an extremely short period of time, that is in one semester. You could feel the fact that they were preparing for creation in the atmosphere of the Theatre Academy, not merely because some moments were accompanied by text, but especially because under the choreographic aspect you could see a coherent scenario. The complex and inciting themes of the choreographic sketches were proposed by Mrs. Ianegic. The majority of the women students – unfortunately, among those who presented projects there weren't any men – approached them with dare and fantasy but in a rigorous manner as well. For interpretation they appealed to colleagues in the same year, from both the choreography department and the theatre department, to students in the last year at the Choreographic High School, but also to actors of the Ploieşti Theatre and of the Bucharest State Circus and to some pre-school children as well. The third year has as theme Choreographic Projections of the Beckettian Universe. Two students from this year, Andreea Duţă and Elena Vasile, composed each a choreographic work inspired from this universe. The first sketch entitled Here I Come Here I Go was a composition for three female-dancers that, using three chairs, spiced their performances more with words than with movement. Only the end suggesting the merging of destinies was beautifully expressed through movement. The second sketch called Then was a work abounding in suggestions and coherent choreographically. A peg full of clothes, hats and having nearby a pair of boots constituted the setting of the work. The objects served one at the time as partners to a dancer in his tumultuous movement. Two female-dancers with synchronized gestures started each time their sequence of movements like a response to the sonorous challenge launched by the dancer through dropping the objects he held in his hand, in the end the dancer himself transforming into a peg. The theme for the first year exam, much more general, was called alternatives, five students from this year presenting works fit to this theme. The first one called A Syntax of Flight or Exercises of Survival composed by Isabela Moldoveanu, was especially suggestive for the chosen topic. The composition brought together in a duet full of poesy a female dancer and an actor, who prepared from time to time their arms like wings, for flight. With them, there performed another feminine duet and among all the performers ran a "madman" that blew into a veil making it float for a few seconds. A work with an exacting title, Novemur et Sumus (We Change and We Exist or We Become Anew and We Exist) created and performed by the student Laura Iva was a poorer sketch because its creator resorted to a wooden structure, which she practically used very little and especially didn't logically take advantage of with the exception of the ending when she closed herself in the given structure like in a cage. Sorana Badea created a consistent work with the title Piano Out of Tune on Chopin's music. An actor mimed the playing of a musical piece on an imaginary piano using a small table while a group of three girls and a boy were transporting, putting in order, changing the order of some scores dancing with them or among them. The dancer in the foreground executed a series of movements that a group of girls took over in the background like an echo. In the end the gestures of the pianist mime that, ceasing to sing, suggested playfully moving the fingers along the table, introduced a short and amusing note of humor that spiced the end. The Round That Doesn't Roll or The Passion for the Absurd was another interesting choreographic sketch created by the student Laurenţia Barbu that danced in her own work as well. The round that didn't roll was a ball fixed on the floor, the ones going round the ball being two dancers – a boy and a girl. The idea, full of ingenuity, was feebler sustained by choreographic composition. The most ample and pretentious work, entitled Metanoia, belonged to the student Alina Zahariuc. It was interpreted by actors, dancers, dwarves, children that recited texts, danced performed circus sequences. The performance was conceived as a succession of moments with their own theme, the link between the scenarios well done and the relationship between the characters logical. The characters of different ages and statures personified a whole world, from priests to clowns reunited in a dream scenario, of a meta-world. The exam seemed more than a simple exam, the works, most of them, being worthy to be staged. The merit for this success I think should be given to the teaching capacity of Professor Raluca Ianegic, but not in the least to her amazingly talented students. The Department of Choreography of the Theatre and Film Academy proves to be today a real breeding ground for the young and very young future choreographers.
by Liana Tugearu
