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I was touched and amazed to discover this skinny little girl, thin and long legged, who was doing her exercises in the ballet room with the concentration of a mature artist. The way she led her body had lost any trace of effort and it was describing meanings known only to

Art critics acclaimed Magdalena Popa: She is one of the most dazzling stars of the century. She was regarded as a goddess of this art. Her small body expressed grace, a sort of ritual noblesse. Born in Bucharest, she graduated from the High School of Choreography and then

I owe much of my setting up as an artist to Boris Kneazev as well. There’s another aspect to consider. One can work enormously in ballet and never get proper parts. Or, there’s even a more dramatic situation, when one gets these parts and realizes that one doesn’t

There are chances in life. I have made mention of it before and will not hesitate to repeat it. To some of them we turn a blind eye; for others we may knowingly not have the just power of judgment and pondering. Or, that of turning something to good account. Floria Capsali

In the summer of 1982, as I was saying an emotional good-bye at Floria Capsali's deathbed, the whole mournful world felt we were witnessing the end of a living legend of Romanian dancing. Indeed, for over half a century (she was born in 1900 in the town of Bitolia,

Some time in the autumn of 1994, Sorin Alexandrescu asked in an interview in 22 magazine why, in the canonical battle between the various radical-democrat and nationalist structures of the opposition (and of the government), more attention is not paid to the real traditions

III. The Culture of Jackasses When an ass leaves his village to go live in the city a wonderful change occurs in him: his asininity leaves the body and sets straight into the soul. In donkey parlance this means the respective jackass becomes cultivated. Thus, an educated

The other Monday walking on Victoriei Road I met a friend. It is a well-known fact that today any guy you treat to a glass of wine at Fialkowsky's or who is in the delightful habit of bumming two or three lei from you is called a friend. Last year, this guy borrowed

*excerpts THE SOPHISTICATED PEASANTS The Romanians are a social phenomenon. As a nation among nations, they are westerners evolved in the East. They are Latins surrounded by Slavs. They are Romans two thousand years away from Rome. They are contemporaries re-produced on

excerpts Chapter IIIThe Nature of the Being  (…) Anybody who knows this nation will agree that the Romanian is a born opponent. Whatever is proposed to him, his first reaction, the first temptation of his thought is to oppose it. But, strangely, his opposition does not

Chapter XII. The Current [1907] Psychological Traits of the Romanian PeopleAll foreigners that visited the Romanian countries were unpleasantly struck by the negative traits of our character. They don't care, says Mr. X. Marmier, for the name of their master. What they

Discussing the character of a nation is as complicated as describing a species of insects from prehistoric times. How can one enumerate its features? How can one analyze its morphology? How can one categorize its behavior? Any large-scale analysis will in fact reduce the