Yesterday I went up to Julie's site to see a unique Romanian tradition,
the bear dance. Her site holds a dance competition and troupes from all
the local villages come into town to perform their dance. Bear dances
are done to bring good luck and happiness in the new year.
Long ago the dances were done by actual bears that were conditioned to dance to the beat of the drum. They were trained to "dance" from the time they were cubs. The cubs were put on hot coals while drums were played, "dancing" as they tried to keep their paws from burning. This was done until they were conditioned to lift their paws when they heard drums beating. As you can imagine, this practice is now banned, but the tradition has morphed into people donning bear skins and dancing.
Julie lives on the road from one of the villages to the center of her town which meant that we were able to get a great view of one of the troupes parading into town.
We then walked into town to watch some more performances on the town stage. We arrived to see some sort of historical reenactment performed by some older men, but we couldn't ever figure out what exactly what they were reenacting.
We then watched another bear dance performed by a different village. I was amazed by the young kids dancing while wearing heavy bear skins and by the man who was hosted up standing on a board to dance above the other bears.
After a few hours, the temperature began to drop so we headed back to Julie's apartment to warm up. There were still other troupes queuing to dance on stage.
There were also a fair number of tired little teddy bears.
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