Interview with Ion Tugiaru

Interview with Ion Tugiaru

He was playing the part of Omul Cuier (Clothhanger Man) and was dressed with a suit and fly. One fly in his neck and another under his nose, in the place of a mustache.
He had a big belly.
Very intense. They would rehearse until Stere was exhausted. It was not possible to interveene. Stere wouldn’t allow any balletic influence from the classically trained dancers. When, in the end of the piece, he was crawling, with lust, towards Christina Hammer?, Cel Mai Fromoasa Fata Din Lume, wearing a dress that reached down to her knees, and because she was dancing in grand plie reached all the way down to the floor so that you cannot see her legs, people were laughing of his expressiveness.
Individual characters. No intervention between. No story. It’s what happens in the society. Different types of personage. Omul Cuier moved with his hands and feet very abrupt, animated (Ion shows how). The only duett in the piece was between the Scarred Man and the Ugly Girl, it was the only dance part. An adagio.
The music was very interesting. (Listens to the music) This is the part of Marius Zilea, Omul Cuier. Even if one character is in the focus, all the other characters are also active. It is a kind of composition. I would like to do this performance. To re-create it again.
It is an exercise of memory. Back in 1965. There was only two presentations. Once in Paris with the scandal and one time in Bucharest. Two times was not enough to store it in the memory. It is 30 years ago.
I don’t remember the set, I think the set was done by lights because I don’t remember Stere telling me that here is a door or a chair.. There might have been some suggestions, some objects, but they were following the characters. A standing clothhanger. A siffon. Adina had a strange wig. Pants and a sweater. The women had dresses..?
The lights were very special. A light that didn’t compromise the costumes.
In the beginning all the characters were on stage. Once in a while they would dissappear out of the stage and reappear, one by one. There were 7 characters and there was an ensemble, a chorus in the back of the stage. Like a greek choir that commented upon the actions and situation of the characters, and amplified it by emotions.
When Omul Razboi (War Man) appear on stage, it has such an impact it affects all the other characters. Even if they were a group, all the characters were very distinct from one another. They were very well worked out by Stere. It was very contemporary. It was not classical, not modern. If it would have been presented today, it would have been a success.
Music: Stere stayed home listening to the music and composed the personage very carefully. The choreography was the slave of the music. Stere didn’t allow any freedom.
On every second of the music there was an action or movement. The music was not made for the dance, the characters, so the choreography had to follow the music.
Adrian Georghiu (Omul Razboi) was moving on his knees with brutality, contorsion, with angels, with extaordinary eyes, vicious, mean, falling, attitude, transforming into something else. Very expressive. This part was maybe expressionistic. It was very bold.
This part, character was similar german expressionism : Mary Wigman. War. Destruction.
Expression in the face:
My eyes was evidently , not possible not to express something in the face. The characters were so extreme. It was in the body. The feeling. The participation was total. All the personage were using their facial expression.
Stere would ask Ion; Don’t you feel it? Don’t you feel anything?
The world was very oppressive in 1965. Stere was very aware of what was happening in Romania and in the occident. He was a cultured man. He has specially observant eyes to understand what happened around him, and that together with the music was the inspiration to the work.
There was a big dispute between the french minister of culture and Pierre Boulez.
It became also an artistic dispute. There was a conflict. An accident. The terrain was already ripe for a scandal. Also the Hammer was shown after Magdalena Popa had won a goldmedal for her interpretation of Giselle, and the audience weren’t expecting to see such a different performance.
The Parizian audience was used with scandals. From Nijinsky to Bejart.
We came with a choreography that was absolutely new to them. They had never expected something like this to come from Romania. Even though the Parisian audience , the french is used to Debussy. And the music of Boulez was
This was the time before Cunningham, Steve Paxton, Trisha Brown and dance postmoderen.
Stere said to Ion Tugiaru; Don’t you understand what is happening? When the audience here in Paris, who are used to scandals are reacting like this, it means that is something happening to them. The piece has moved something . Don’t you understand that that’s why they are upset. Half are applauding, and half is booing.
The performance was well done, and the interprets were excelent. The parisan audience understood that. Besides the choreography and the music, they reacted to the quality of the performers. So in the end, after all the turmoil, they all clapped for the performance.
The 7 Characters:
Omul Opulent (Opulent Man) Ion Tugiaru and Fata Opulent (Opulent Girl) by Simona Stefanescu, Omul Cuier/Mannequin (Mannequin) Marius Zilea and Fata Frumosa (Beautilful Girl), Omul Razboinicul (War Man), Fata cu Urata ( Ugly Girl) and
Omul cu Cicatrice (Scarred Man)
Each character was presented individual. Between the War Man and the other character, there was no confusion.
The Ugly Girl meets the Scarred Man, and because they both have their problem.
This is a duet.
The greatest symbol was the cloth hanger stand of the Mannequin, who is being very mechanic/machine like, has a bold head, and has things hanging off of him, from his belt, a clock here, a chain there, and he was amazed when he met someone, but very quickly he would go back to his mechanical movements and would disappear.
The Mannequin and Beautiful Girl have a little duet.
The Opulent Man, as I said, was like an opulent man of today, going with his Jeep where he wants, when he wants. With a pappilon under his nose and a big belly and gestures like...
The Opulent Girl was like Josephine Baker, with an high hairdo and exotic make-up, and
shoes with very high heels, like nails. Simona Stefanescu was concerned because the fashion in Paris at the time was half-high heels.
The Beautiful Girl rejected The Opulent Man, because she preferred the Mannequin.
Nobody can claim to have contributed to the choreography, because Stere didn’t allow any interpretation. (Leni.. draga..?)
After we came back to Bucharest from Paris, and Stere and Gabriel Popescu (the first soloist of the opera) had defected, we were invited to a briefing/press conference at Casa Scentei (House of the Press) with the politicians, I remember with regret, that it was a mistake, because all the artists were exposed to strong aggressive from the politicians.
And one of the politisians said that the music was like a toilet flush. Tugiary was sad about this, because he was one of the few dancers who liked the music. They were all destroyed after this. The director of the opera and conductor of the orchestra fainted.
It was after that we came back we presented the performance here as degenerated art, it was for for free, no ticket sales, for anyone who wanted to see it. A lot of people came. The people in Bucharest had heard of the scandal. After the performance, when the curtains closed, there was an enormous applause. It was strange because the audience here was used with classical ballet. The president of the composers union got up from his seat, and was very upset, because the demonstration to show that this was bad had failed.
I am sad not to have appreciated it back then, but if I had had the chance to do it again,
I would have danced it now. If it had been filmed, I would have re-created it exactly.
I was sharing dressing room with Stere, and if it was something Ion didn’t like was that Stere was very explosive, nervous, he was constantly displacing himself. Some rehearsals were canceled because of his temper. As I said; he was much more cultured than the rest of the dance community. Many french choreographers have come here and influenced the dance scene here after that, but he did thid 30 years ago, before Christian Bastin came.