Opening the Opera House

I mustered up enough courage to walk into the "Information Office" at the huge Opera House downtown. In Romanian I asked the man at the information desk about ballet in the city. He (and the other two in his small office) responded in the positive. After asking more questions, he led me upstairs to two girls. One of them spoke English. I could just tell from her strong, lean arms that she was some kind of dancer or gymnist. In the backgroud I could hear someone in the building singing opera. Being in that old European opera house, talking to this dancer, and hearing someone singing live opera in the backgroud was just like what I imagined it would be like to be a European Ballerina in Paris or Russia when I was a kid. I asked this woman where I could find ballet classes and she told me to return in the morning and talk with the directer (maestro!). "He doesn't speak English," she told me, "but the girls will help you." As she was speaking, a girl walked into our room. Her back was super straight and her feet turned out as she walked. The sight of her instantly increased my longing to dance! I was SO excited to find this place, and have the hope of dancing, and for the little adventure of going into the building and speaking Romanian that I wanted to sing and shout at the same time! :)

So this morning I woke up and put on my dance clothes and walked back to the Opera house. When I arrived there were many more people in the room small room, who looked at me as I entered. I made eye contact with a woman and then spoke to her in Romanian asking about taking dance classes and talking with the directer. (maestro!) All the romanians listened to me as a spoke with her. Hearing a foreigner was interesting enough for them to put what previously occupied them on hold.

I talked with the director, who spoke no English and watched part of a class before I left to work at the high school. Dancers were running around in costumes. They have a performance tomorrow night.

Like I said, we were inside on old opera house. This dance room was on the third floor with bars and mirrors and a great floor for the dancers and you could see the branches of trees (all bare) outside the nine windows in the room. You could faintly hear and see the busy Romanian city with people walking all over the streets and old cars pushing through the streets from these antique windows. Sun slipped through them, one of which was open in the cornor. All the heaters were turned on. An older joyful woman played the piano, and the head of a donkey (obviously part of a costume) was atop a table by the piano. The sight was poetry to one "hungry for dance." And It is great to hear a Romanian dance teacher saying the words so familour to a dancer, "sue-ta-new," plie, etc.