"Calusul" - Probably The Fastest Folk Dance in the World!
Has anyone danced or at least learned to dance break dance in high school or teen age years? Probably quite a few around here have had their time spent dedicated to this dance that supposedly was invented by the African American youth in the early 1970, according to wikipedia.
Well, let me tell you, that we have, or at least had our own break dance as well, the Romanian one was called Calusul, which was actually an archaic zamolxian ritual, and as you will see in the following video might be the fastest dance in the world and for sure older than the American break dance so, beat that America.
Calusul however, wasn't for anyone, and to my knowledge it is no longer being danced, by the ones that are still practicing it, as it was decades or even centuries ago. Why? Because it was actually a ritual and not just a simple dance that you learn in weekends or after school and involved a spiritual preparation as well. A purifying dance ritual dance against evil entities that could affect old Romanian villages back then, that was the dance about.
Being a ritual and a sacred even it meant that a certain spiritual preparation had to be involved in order for the Romanian break dance to be effective and all of that was in the hands of the men practicing it. They were actually a community of men, or should I say brotherhood, and weeks before the actual event took place they would go out into the forest leaving behind their women, their normal food and almost all sort of distraction that they had in the village and "eat calusul". Some monk stuff happened in these woods.
Some hardcore shit I would say, that should have gave them that energy to dance like that. Yes, practice is needed to become a master in anything but I've watched modern times folks dancing it and they suck. Too slow in my opinion and don't have that vibe like the ones in the video. Probably too much alcohol, porn and jerking off and fast food chemicals drained them and slowed them when dancing.
Not going to make this a scientific post or a religious one about this dance so feel free to watch this 2 minute video and share your opinion of the dance and the guys dancing it. What do you think and what do you feel like watching them performing this sort of dance? The video quality is very poor because it was filmed a looong time ago but you will get what I am talking about.
Thanks for attention,
Adrian
I'm coming from this region, probably exactly from the village where this video is filmed (if I'm not totally wrong, I'm pretty sure that I recognize the house from the background).
Traditionally, "căluşul" was danced by ordinary people, mainly farmers, and only in one day of the year (in the first Sunday after the Orthodox Pentecost Holiday).
Well, in this region, people are still believing in demons and vampires, and the dance was seen as a ritual to protect from those demons. Therefore, weeks before, the dancers started a purification ritual, including prayers in the church, building a flag with garlic, basil and Artemisia Absinthium (same plant used also to make absinthe in France), swearing an oath...
They were always an even number, and they had also one guy masked as a demon (he was called "Mut" - translation for mute). At the beginning of the dance, the Mute was in power, leading the moves. But then, slowly he was loosing power, the dance gained some speed, and the good guys were taking the power from the muted guy, ending with another oath, removing some leaves from the flag, and giving them to people as protective talismans
I was a child, but I remember the dance as it was yesterday. The group was going through the village and stopped at the most known people from the community. The host was paying the dancers few coins, opened the doors, and invited them to dance in his courtyard. This was a sign of prosperity and I remember my grandfather inviting them at our place. All neighbors were gathering to watch the ritual. Sometimes, mothers were bringing sick kids, because the dancers were taking sick kids in their arms and "dance them". People believed that this way all sickness was removed.
This was the traditional "Căluşul", and the rituals are now part of the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists.
But this tradition was also used by the communist regime in Romania as a form of propaganda. The dictator was also from this region, and the party decided to promote the dance. They removed all symbolism from the ritual, hired many-many professional dancers, and started to promote it abroad. I had a book written by one of the nephews of Ceausescu on the modern history of "Calusul" This guy was coordinating the process of changing the ritual. He was saying that they were participating in international festivals, but they were constantly loosing to the russian cazacioc dancers. And to win, somewhere in the early 70s, they started to increase the speed of the dance, to the point where the stages were not capable of sustaining all the weight of their synchronized jumps. And this became their signature during the folk music and dance festivals, to dance till the stage collapsed...
Thanks for the details you brought to the post. I knew that Calusul was originated somewhere near Craiova, and knowing how fast oltenii are I wouldn't be amazed for them to master the dance this way. Nowadays I haven't seen anyone dancing it that was. In regards of Ceausescu I can only say that his sick mind wanted to be first at anything and probably that's what got him killed. He twisted traditions, enslaved his people and gathered much hatred towards him this way. I appreciate though the speed those guys managed to dance on and such example of art are the ones that make Romania's image a bit better.
From what I know, there's a festival organised in Caracal and/or in Slatina, where about 2-3 thousands dancers are gathering each year.
Check out the footwork by the Nichols Brothers:
That was a great video. Dance--the universal language :)
Nice, I like this kind of music a lot, but I don' he was that fast as the guys that you can see in the video that I shared. I totally agree that dance can ease communication between two strangers that have no common language.
Yours is definitely faster :)
Also known as "calusarul".
Indeed. I thought the dancers were were called like that.
I think it is one and the same thing.Depends of area witch we talking about.
I m sorry that we couldn't see such dance in our days.