3rd December, 2024
A very early start followed by breakfast in a cozy little shed kitted out as a dining room at the bottom of the garden. Our hotel staff had prepared us their version of an English cooked breakfast, and even though I am a vegetarian with little interest in fried foods, I was so touched.
Our hosts had made us so much, there were slices of toast and honey, sausages and omelettes, fresh pastries filled with apricot jam and yoghurts and fruit. I was overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity these people were showing us, this was the first clear cultural difference I observed. Whereas in comparison to the UK this sort of generosity is not as commonly experienced day to day and certainly not amongst strangers. I felt grateful for being shown this small bit of kindness and it felt like a good omen for the rest of the week.
After breakfast we headed to the Muzeul Memorial Pogor, which was a beautiful old building that had been renovated as a usable space for rehearsals and dance classes.
Here we sat in on a choreography class for a couple of hours, observing the style and teaching of the class. Immediately I was struck by the level of discipline among the students, the teacher was incredibly strict and set out some very difficult exercises, some of which were difficult to watch as we observed the students struggling with the physical and mental challenge of the exercises.
There were only a few exercises however they would develop over 20-30mins, growing the movement larger with every repetition.
What I found particularly fascinating was the focus on specificity and fluidity within the movement and the way the teacher guided the students to achieve both of these elements, sometimes simultaneously. I noted down some of the exercises as it relates to my solo practice work I experimented with last year; the fluid swinging motion that was present in all of the exercises is very similar to the work of David Zambrano, whom I studied the work of last year as an inspiration for my own exploration.
We spent the rest of the day resting, and then as it got dark we headed down to Café Negru in the centre of town; this was where we were going to perform the following day. It had been organized for us to spend a few hours here to make ourselves familiar with the space and make any changes that might be needed to the show. As it turned out, that was necessary! The stage space was roughly 5 x 10 feet, and so with 8 performers and a couple of large choreographed movement sections, quite a few alterations needed to be made. This required quick thinking and a lot of careful consideration, surviving on roughly 1hr of sleep from the night before I found it a struggle to concentrate but I knew this was vital to the success of our performance, so I pushed through as best as I could and rewarded myself with a tasty mulled wine afterwards.
A warm, filling meal from the Romanian-Italian restaurant next door restored our hungry souls. This was the first time I was able to use my Romanian since arriving, and in return I had our lovely waiter joke about my vegetarianism as he smiled across the table taking my order. As we were leaving, I confidently blurted out ‘Noapte buna’ (Good night) and was received with a pleasantly surprised face beaming at me, ‘Noapte buna doamna!’ (Good night my lady) I got in return. In that moment I felt utterly at home in this country, hundreds of miles from my real home and life and I felt completely content and surrounded by kind souls. This was one of the moments that boosted my confidence and as a result lead to me to make bolder choices in other areas, such as making additions to the performance and having animated discussions about interculturalism with my friends later that evening.
When Josh and I arrived back at the hotel, I suddenly realized we still did not have enough origami lotus’ for the audience members that would be seeing our show the very next day. So we spent the next hour folding lotus flowers one after the other, while we debriefed about our day and reflected on what we did and didn’t enjoy.
Day 1 over and I am so tired, but filled with joy and curiosity, so far so good!
A week in Iași, Romania! 