Choreographer Gigi Caciuleanu with a premiere in Sibiu

Today well be talking about the premiere of the choreographic theatre performance “Mozart Steps, a production of the Radu Stanca Theater in Sibiu.

România Internațional, 05.10.2013, 13:57

Today we’ll be talking about the premiere of the choreographic theatre performance “Mozart Steps,” a production of the Radu Stanca Theater in Sibiu, which marked the opening of the season and the 225th anniversary of the theatre in Sibiu. Here is how the former prima ballerina of the Bucharest National Opera House, Simona Somacescu, described her emotions right after the show:

“I am so happy! Gigi Caciuleanu gives so much joy, he’s got such a tremendous capacity to give like no one else I had worked with. And the show is absolutely fantastic! “Mozart Steps” is very rich, it has more than one layer of reading. Gigi Caciuleanu’s works have a very subtle quality. I don’t know how he does it, but he manages to reach the innermost parts of our being. Even those who are used to watching such performances cannot avoid a shock, be it emotional, aesthetic, you name it. I have always thought that if a creator feels the need to explain himself, that means that somehow his work is not complete. With Gigi Caciuleanu and this show, I needed no explanation. Everything is so exquisitely built, and all with such profundity and with so many nuances!”

Gigi Caciuleanu created “Mozart Steps” starting off from the music on volumes one and two of the album “Mozart in Egypt,” compiled by musician Hughes de Courson and the Egyptian professor Ahmed Al Maghreby. The two created a fusion between Mozart’s works and the sounds, rhythms and instruments that are typical for present-day Egyptian music. The work of the two artists has been rated as a true musical phenomenon. Wit details on that, here is Gigi Caciueanu himself:

“This is Mozart seen through the “eyes” or rather “heard” through the ears of Oriental music. And you will be surprised to find out that sometimes that kind of music coming from Egypt sounds very much like our music from Maramures, from Transylvania — the alpenhorn, the flute music. That’s what struck me when I listened to that album. It is a rather special Mozart. Apart from a musical genius, for me Mozart is one of the first Europeans. He wrote in German as well as in Italian. He is a Shakespeare of music, so to speak, who took us from one country to the other. I‘ve got his music in my mind as well as in my body and I had been waiting for that for quite some time. And now I was given the opportunity to work with it in Sibiu, this time with actors. There are no dancers.”

Indeed, the cast of “Mozart Steps” features actors from the Romanian and German sections of the “Radu Stanca” Theatre, as well as theatre students at the “Lucian Blaga” Drama University in Sibiu. Gigi Caciuleanu told us more about how they worked together:

“They are all natural-born dancers. I discovered they have a great deal of talent. The show is a difficult test for them, because they had a hard time working with limited dancing areas and using the most of their energy. But don’t think this is a “hopping” show, as I like to call it. It’s a show in which dance holds pride of place, with heavy focus on body movement and team play. That’s why it’s called choreographic theatre, because the stage directing is laid out as choreography. I didn’t want them to hide behind dancers’ masks or dress as ballet dancers. On the contrary, I wanted them to look like ‘normal’ people, just like the men and women sitting in the audience and watching the show. I’m always very keen on this aspect”.

The audience attending the premiere of the show appreciated the remarkable performance of dance-actors, as Gigi Caciuleanu usually calls them. Choreographer Simona Somacescu, former prima ballerina of the National Opera in Bucharest:

“Had I been taken blindfolded into the performance hall, without being told where I was and what I was watching, I would have never had them for actors. People would just say, well, yes, he managed to make some actors move. But it’s more than just that. You also need a sort of musical instinct, you can’t just make an actor move his legs and hands. You need to have an understanding of what movement is, a sort of motion insight and musical intuition, which tell you how to filter movement through the body. And this is an innate feature”.

One of the dance-actors that put on an impressive performance was actress Diana Fufezan, who told us more about her first time working with Gigi Caciuleanu:

“When I found out I had been selected for the project, I was over the moon, because during the casting I felt I knew what he wanted from us, from the way he spoke to us. What was the biggest challenge? Well, there were many, because dancing is like tightrope walking, as Gigi Caciuleanu always tells us. It was difficult to be strong and expressive at the same time. There were times when I felt I was just about to collapse, but I shook it off and went on. One night I stayed up late, practicing the duo with Florin. It was just the three of us — me, Florin and Gigi, and we danced for 3 hours straight. He worked us on the verge of exhaustion since true dancing, he argued, needed to push oneself to the limit. That’s when I felt truly liberated. From that time on I’ve always known I am capable of anything”.

For those of you wondering why the show is called “Mozart Steps”, Gigi Caciuleanu provides the answer: “The step is the element of space dynamics which we all share. It is the first link in any dance and any simple walk”.

The choreographic show “Mozart Steps” is to be presented in the official programme of the International Theatre Festival in Sibiu in 2014.