Cotidianul, Dancing, between the civic lesson and the political manifesto

As I walked towards the National Theatre to see The Firebird, I didn’t expect to leave so touched and with teary eyes.
Obviously, Royston Maldoom has a calling for working with amateurs and the space vision of big groups. “Artistic potential” is the key notion of community dance, a concept that is not only unknown, but hard to understand for a society where volunteering and working in the benefit of the community are just emerging, and where concerned foreigners take better care of us than we do ourselves.

The Firebird, symphonic suite, whose premiere with the Russian Ballets of Serghei Diaghilev happened almost 100 years ago, presents, from the first notes, a stage full of children, some of them with a particular native plasticity. The story is told in a simplified manner, in an oneiric key – sublimating it as a narrative circle – and is reduced to the family universe. The Firebird is Prince Ivan’s chosen one and together they create the wonder of parenthood, their love scatters the menace of evil embodied by Kascei; the child’s dreams is populated by friends, games, confrontations, moment of failure and hopes…
Without a doubt, for the little artists, this will remain one of the moments of pure glory in their childhood (it is so play a part when you are only a few years old, in a dance show on stage of the National Theatre!) and the kind of event that marks you for life. Beyond shaping an individual path, the most important thing in this game of real dancing and acting is the continuity, taking one idea and spreading it – a different kind of engaged art form that our society is only beginning to discover.

Author:Vivia Sandulescu