On Being Available. Conversations with Silvia Călin
Martor. The Museum of the Romanian Peasant Anthropology Review November 14, 2025 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.57225/martor.2025.09 via Semantic Scholar
Summary
Dancing is a bodily experience that unites body and mind within specific times and spaces. Traditional folk dances and modern performances share sensory and cognitive tools for exploring the body. In an interview, a contemporary dancer and ethnologist discuss self-perception, connection with other dancers, fixed structures versus creativity and improvisation, movement, exertion, breathing, altered states of consciousness including ecstatic ritual dances, and objectification of one's own body.
Study at a glance
| Design | interview |
|---|---|
| Key finding | Traditional folk dances and modern dance performances share a corpus of sensorial and cognitive tools for bodily exploration. |
Abstract
This interview focuses on the act of dancing as a corporeal experience that connects body and mind as part of an indestructible unit deployed in specific spatial and temporal arenas. In this respect, traditional folk dances and dancers share with modern performers and dance performances a corpus of sensorial and cognitive tools for bodily exploration. The dialogue is between Silvia Călin, a contemporary dancer and choreographer, and Laura Jiga Iliescu, an ethnologist. The issues explored during the interview are concerned with self-perception and connection with other dancers performing in the same arena; fixed structures, creativity and improvisation; movements, exertion, breathing and altered states of consciousness (with comments on ecstatic ritual dances); objectification towards one’s own body; and related topics.