Here are some of the reactions to the sad news of Anca Giurchescu by her colleagues and friends.

Anca’s "four sisters"

Irene Loutzaki

For the first time, I met Anca during the 16th Symposium in Budapest. We became friends.

When we were in Istanbul during a meeting on structural analysis Anca, Adrienne, Lisbet, Arzu and myself visited the famous cistern. Because all five we were very good friends we decided to have a Cisternhood. Now, this cisternhood lost one of its members, the most beloved and precious one.

Adrienne L. Kaeppler

I met Anca for the first time at the Bayonne ICTM conference in 1973. As I came from an entirely different tradition (American Anthropology) and research in a different part of the world (Pacific Islands), Anca’s publications and knowledge were unknown to me. I attended her paper in Bayonne and was astonished that her methods were so similar to mine. I had not read her earlier publications and she had probably not read my paper in Ethnomusicology from the previous year (1972). After her session in Bayonne, Anca and I had several long discussions and we became immediate friends. I wanted to know more about the ICTM folkdance terminology dance group, but it was essentially closed to outsiders, and although Anca wanted to invite me, it never happened.

We met again at ICTM World conferences and we always had great discussions. I was also in contact with others in the ICTM dance group, but I was still never invited to their meetings. Finally, they opened the group to others in the Copenhagen meeting, which I suspect was at Anca’s urging, but unfortunately I could not attend.

In the meantime I began to teach part time in Belfast and Irene Loutzaki was one of my first graduate students. We also became great friends. And Arzu was living in New York and we were also in close contact (in fact I took her to see the Rockettes for her graduation present!). Finally, the four of us, plus Lisbet Torp all met and interacted at the study group meetings in Budapest and Greece. Indeed, we became “sisters” after our visits together to the Cisterns in Istanbul as well as the communal baths. From then on we five became inseparable (if you can be inseparable at a distance) and we always roomed together at the Ethnochoreology symposia, which most of us attended regularly. Besides the Study group meetings, we interacted at the Sub-study group on Structural Analysis and were bonded by friendship as well as our interest in Structural Analysis and other wide-ranging subjects.

Thus, the passing of Anca brings sadness to my heart and tears to my eyes as I type this. We will all miss her enthusiasms about dance and life. And the sisters/cisterns will have a heavy heart and happy memories. Many thanks for everything, Anca, we will miss you forever!

Arzu Öztürkmen

For Anca...

I landed to the wonderland of ICTM on July 1992 in the beautiful garden of the Nafplion Folk Art Museum.  Back then, it was quite of an adventure to travel to Greece as a Turkish student, and the warm welcome feeling

The garden was crowded and our host was Rena Loutzaki, who received me heartfully, and introduced to Adrienne and Anca.  Adrienne turned to me and said “You came to the best place for dance research!”  I was already familiar with Adrienne’s work, but the rest of the crowd was new to me. Anca took me from my arm and in 15 minutes briefed me on the history of the group. This is when I first heard about the amazing story of the encounter between the Eastern European and Western ‘structuralists’. Cold War was just over, but its memory and legacy were still fresh! I quickly understood Anca’s leading role as a “translator”, linguistically for sure, but more important ‘culturally.’ Dance scholars who came from all over the world had very different backgrounds, and little interaction with one another in this pre-internet era. Anca spent most of her breath these days to engage in an incredible traffic of translation, ranging from English, French and Scandinavian to Romanian and Russian. With her perceptive character she would also take the lead in cultural, and even at times, emotional translation. Now looking back at my exposure to this academic and festive milieu, I appreciate a set of values which shaped my academic spirit today.

1990s were also the heydays of nationalism studies, and the topic of the 1992 symposium was Politics of Dance, a paradise for me, as I was then struggling to formulate the folk dance chapter of my dissertation on Folklore and Nationalism in Turkey. Anca was keen on Turkish culture, the Ottoman past of the Balkans intrigued her. And this was our secret accord. As a Turkish scholar in international circles, I was exposed more to criticism on Turkey’s meager record on human rights, Islam, the Kurdish question, Armenian genocide, women's oppression. These were issues we were all aware of and sensitive to, yet also resentful to the discourses in which they were expressed.  Master of all worlds, Western, East European, communist and democratic, Anca understood me very well. And over the years we had long discussions on the Ottoman past of the Balkans, whose impact we now discuss more in the ICTM Southeast European Study Group, of which Anca was a steady member.

During the Nafplion meeting, there were very interesting discussions in the sub-study group on Structural Analysis, a topic which charmed me, as I wanted to clear in my head the terminology on movement analysis. But the group had lost its motivation to meet separately, which was best expressed by Adrienne saying “I would only come only if we would do a meeting in Samarkand!” I had no contact in Samarkand, but I jumped and replied “Would you come to Istanbul?” This is how our journey of sisternhood began. I organized that meeting with great enthusiasm and in mere amateur spirit, as I had no institution backing me up. I am still indebted to my friends who helped me to put together the setting, equipment, furniture for making the “Colloquium on Dance Structural Analysis” during August 23-29, 1993 in Istanbul. Our meeting was our bonding, strolling around Istanbul, which ended in the Hamam of Galatasaray, one of the most touristic Turkish bath of the city. When we left the Hamam on a Saturday afternoon with Anca, Lisbet, Rena and Adrienne, we knew that we had passed a threshold of friendship. We had visited the historical cisterns in the morning and Adrienne, our master of rhyming and poetic creativity, named our group “sisterns”, an honorary title I will always cherish. Thereafter, we shared rooms, and cherished long conversations through our conference times, in Skierniewice (1994), Hania (1995), Innsbruck (1995), Trest (1996), and again in Istanbul in 1998.  These ‘conference times’ to me were always what Alessandro Falassi called “time out of time”, in the challenging and perhaps lonely academic journey I had then in Turkey. The scholarly quality and friendship I found in ICTM meetings gave me an outside energy to better succeed domestically. And Anca has always been a central source of that friendly energy.

Conference times also had their incidents. I will never forget the night I waited for Anca, Adrienne and Rena in Innsbruck, where the hostels close and do not accept residents after 11 pm. Having landed from a long trip to Innsbruck, the hostel managers refused to open their doors and turned them down. Shocked by their inflexibility, and disappointed by their hospitality, they had come to my place in despair. Four of us slept on the floor that day in my room, with a cozy feeling I still remember.

The laughter and happiness I felt during these meetings will remain unmatched all my life. Anca’s favorable line among us was her politely saying “I am sorry”, a mimicry we would try to imitate and fail, as none of us could ever apologize so genuinely as Anca did. The charm of these ICTM days was based on our collective and high caliber academic work combined with a heartfelt sharing of personal lives and memories. Anca’s life story was undoubtedly the sharpest. A story I had the chance of hearing many times in different occasions. She transmitted a sharp memory of the night where she and her family decided to leave Romania, a narrative which ended with the image of the hand written and half-typed research paper she left behind.  I believe Anca’s nostalgia for that particular draft never ended.

Over the years, we also had an opportunity to visit one another in our home towns. On my way to my first Oral History conference, I stayed with Anca and Bebe in 1996 in Copenhagen for a few days. There, I saw a different Anca. Anca the wife, the mother, the cook, the wise woman healer like in Yannis Ritsos poetry ‘Helena’. Two more memories remain in my mind: One is Bebe’s showing me a Turkish folk music program on the TRT international channel. The other is our visit to Anca’s mother in her assisted home. Anca brought her regularly home-cooked food and the two ladies exchanged a real daily conversation on their daily routine.

In 1998, following the ICTM Symposium in Istanbul, we organized as sisterns a trip to Cappadocia. I had just given birth to my daughter Nihal. We spent a few days in Ürgüp, Göreme and Avanos, along with Nihal and my mother, who also accompanied us. Anca’s asthma got worse and she had to stay in hotel at times. She lived even with this disease in a friendly way, knowing its ways and handling it in her own way.

Anca also came to Istanbul two other times. Each time, we made sure that she slept over my place, or at my mother’s. Face to face, on the phone or through e-mail, she has been a surrogate mother over the years, listening to me and responding with examples from her own life. The last sweet memory I have with Anca is the rock concert of the famous DUMAN, in the Open Air Theater of Istanbul. We sang and danced with joy that night, which ended with an amazing police officer story that I will tell you when we will gather in Istanbul in 2016 at a conference to commemorate her dear memory.

Nur içinde yat Anca’cığım, sevgili dostum, akıl hocam. Nur içinde yat.

Lisbet Torp

Anca and her family arrived in Denmark in December 1979, as political refugees from Romania. Already one month later, Anca entered my life thanks to mutual friends who knew about our work and mutual interests. Our first encounter led to a close friendship and a yearlong collaboration travelling together, lecturing together, writing articles and organizing conferences together. All along sharing our thoughts, work, and concerns.

However, when Anca and I first met, I was still fairly new and rather alone in dance research – my interest being structural analysis of step patterns in chain and round dances. I knew of Anca and her work before she arrived in Denmark, therefore having her within reach at this particular time in my life was like an unexpected gift to me. Anca generously shared her insights and her wisdom thus supporting me in my dance research leading to my doctoral work.

Anca introduced me to the work of the dance Study Group which was then still largely defined by and limited to its founding members all based in Eastern Europe. Once having settled in Denmark Anca saw it as a call to widen the scope and the geographical coverage of the Study Group to include scholars and colleagues of the Western world. The opportunity to join forces in this direction was the 1985 ICTM World Conference in Stockholm-Helsinki. This is where the first steps to the present Study Group were taken, followed by a meeting in Neubrandenburg (DDR) in 1986 and the ICTM World Conference in East Berlin in 1987.

In 1988, Anca and I organized the first truly international conference of the ICTM Study Group for Ethnochoreology in our home town of Copenhagen. The theme for the conference was THE DANCE EVENT - A Complex Cultural Phenomenon. Together we constituted the programme committee – and needless to say had great fun in preparing all the practical arrangements needed for an international conference such as venue, housing, excursions, meals etc. Thanks to Anca's many contacts and ICTM's worldwide network , the theme succeeded in attracting participants from all over Europe (East and West), the US, Canada, and Jamaica as well as China – altogether 17 countries were represented. Most of those who attended the 1988 conference became dedicated members of the Study Group till today.

Sadly, Anca is no longer amongst us. This is a loss we must live with, however, we shall find comfort in the fact that Anca's spirit will live on as a constitutional part of the Study Group.

Anca was born in Romania. In the middle of her life, she became Danish. But most of all Anca was a citizen of the world – and dear friend.

The sadness that fills me on the occasion of Anca’s passing away at the same time opens for me the door to Memory Lane with appreciation of her contribution to our Study Group, with memories of exciting discussions, funny parties – I particularly remember the mock wedding in Skiernewice in Poland in 1994, but there were many more such occasions in our mutual life with Anca.

I truly enjoyed my years in the Study Group among all of you.

Long live her memory!

Memories from some of her many other colleagues (in alphabetical order of first names)

Allegra Fuller Snyder

Many, many of us shared in different, but important ways, Anca's wonderful friendship as well as inspiration and guidance. And, oh, she will be missed. Anca came to UCLA in the early 1980s and immediately we enjoyed much talking and thinking together. Anca was then very thoughtful in helping me find some friends and beds, while I was on my Fulbright in Europe late 1983, 1984, assisted by good correspondence and guidance during my preliminary time at NYU, in1982-83, just before the Fulbright. While I was in Europe I went to Copenhagen several times--and saw Anca, and met Lisbet Torp, which led in 1988, to Anca and Lisbet organizing, as Lisbet mentions "the first truly international conference of the ICTM Study Group for Ethnochoreology in Copenhagen". The theme for the conference was THE DANCE EVENT - A Complex Cultural Phenomenon. And since my great interest was the Dance Event, to my doing the opening address at Copenhagen Study group meeting and to Romania, in 1990, for the wonderful research group, which Anca organized, and, which Colin was a part of and reported on, and many years of long and stimulating discussions at Study Group meetings, I was SO AWARE of her absence this last summer in Korcula, that is when my sadness started. Oh, Anca, you will be missed.

Allison Singer

I met Anca once in Monghidoro, I remember her smile and her gentle encouragement!

Anis Nor

I first met Anca Giurchescu in 1996 at the 19th Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Ethnochoreology in Třešt, Czech Republic. It was quite a bewildering experience to join the ICTM Study group on Ethnochoreology for the first time after arriving from Kuala Lumpur but Anca showered her warmth and collegiate spirit as soon as I met her, and introduced me to the members who were present at the symposium. Henceforth, our friendship grew steadfastly throughout the Study Group Symposia. I was always bedazzled with her steadfastness in her scholarship, her sheer relentless energy to pursue field research while mentoring younger scholars, and above all, her unyielding desire to expand the study group beyond Europe. With her support and blessing from the Study Group Committee, I was trusted to curate the 25th Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Ethnochoreology in Kuala Lumpur in 2008, which was a momentous occasion for the Study Group to meet for the first time outside Europe. Although Anca was not able come to Malaysia due to her health condition and long distant travel, her bearing was felt from afar. The same feeling overwhelms me as I celebrate her charisma and comportment as mentor-teacher-colleague, in her life and in her passing.

Andrée Grau

We all have a bit of her in our hearts.

Ann David

Anca was awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of Roehampton in 2009. It was such a wonderful occasion to have her with us on that day, to hear Andrée Grau's speech honouring Anca and to listen to Anca's speech to the university and all the students.

Anya Royce

very sorry to hear this--such a loss both scholar and mentor.

Anne Décoret-Ahiha

I feel so sad. It’s been a long time since I haven’t taking part in seminars and congress of ICTM substudy group. My job and life have taken different roads. But I always keep in mind the 2000 first congress, in this wonderful island of Korcula. And this sunny day walking along with Anca in Dubrovnik streets. As we shared the same hotel room. It was 15 years ago. 

Something in my heart is crying 

I imagine Anca smiling to the angels 

Belma Kurtişoğlu   

In September 2012, we had a great time during the meeting of substudy group of cocek and çiftetelli in Istanbul. Visited Sulukule, observed touristic representations of çiftetelli and compared cocek, köçek, çiftetelli, 'Roman', manele, belly dance, oriental dance. Anca was very inspiring and full of energy, as usual.

So sorry....

May Anca Dance In Peace......

Bernard Lortat-Jacob

I have fleeting, but bright memories about Anca, about her generosity, intelligence, and amazing dynamism.

Carlos Yoder

I had heard only wonderful things about Anca, so I approached her at the Limerick Ethnochoreology Symposium in 2012, just to introduce myself. She was very generous with her advice, kind words, and warmth. That was the only time I met her in person, and I'm so happy to have that memory. RIP Anca.

Carol Silverman

May our dear elder friend and scholar be remembered for her wonderful work and her sparkling personality!

Catherine Foley

It is with deep sadness that I heard of Anca's passing. She has been an inspiration to many of us and will be sorely missed. I láthair Dé, go bhféadfadh sí damhsa.

When I first joined the ICTM Study Group at Třešt, in 1996, I quickly became aware of strong passionate women in the group - Anca was one of these women. She had an overwhelming impact on people's lives, without her ever knowing it. She inspired me by her passion for ethnochoreology and her commitment to our Study Group. She was at nearly all meetings over the decades and contributed wholeheartedly to discussions and presentations. It will be hard to think of our Study Group without her but she is in our hearts and will be with us in spirit.  

Colin Quigley

I have many memories of Anca and meeting her genuinely changed my life. She encouraged my fledgling interest in Romania after 1990 with extraordinary generosity and in countless ways. I will treasure the lessons learned from her and hope to pass them on. She was a wonder to behold working in the field. The energy and focus she displayed was humbling. Watching her with a group of Calusari dancers during a mid-day break, recording as rapid-fire questions and answers flew back and forth among them, I found myself focussing my camera on her. It was a truly virtuoso performance, never to be forgotten. Personally, the inspiration she gave me to learn new languages later in life, to take risks in pursuit of my own passions and enthusiasms in dance and music, and to always push beyond what I already knew was transformative. Thank you Anca, from the bottom of my heart.

Daniela Stavelová

I met Anca before Christmas 2014 when she was in Prague by her daughter. She made a strong progress with training walking and physical condition. We talked about the next Sub-Study Group fieldwork and discussed the topic. She had challenging ideas and was still full of energy when talking about work and next plans – she was training consciously to be able to join the next symposium in Graz. But before her departure she had a strong complication with breathing and spent some days in hospital in Prague... I will never forget her enthusiasm, passion for new ideas but also her amiability and sympathy for others. She encouraged me from the beginning when I joined the Study Group on Ethnochoreology in 1994 in Skierniewitze to overcome the gap I had as a “girl from the East” living behind the “fire-proof curtain” without previous connection with the western research. She deeply understood my difficult position and it was so important for me to feel her support. I consider her as my spiritual mother and I will miss her so much...

Danielle J van Dobben

I feel lucky to have had the chance to meet Anca -- what an inspiration! That her death falls on the day before Easter is lovely symbolism and, I hope, of some small comfort.

Ed Austin

I'm sad for all of us, but so happy for the years I was able to work with Anca. I loved our discussions and gained so many insights from her.  I met her first in Llangollen, Wales where we adjudicated for several years together (2007,2008,2009). A picture (taken in July 2008) is the way I will remember her ... a beautiful smile and always full of life ... the way I believe her still to be.

Egil Bakka

In 1997 László Felföldi with some other members of the Ethnochoreology Study Group initiated a seminar for New Ethnochoreologists, which through the years developed into a large Intensive Program for University teachers and students of 15 European Universities. Anca was not a university teacher, but she was indispensable, and was invited to and attended as the only regular external teacher to the 2 week long programs taking place in Trondheim most years between 2003 and 2013. Her lectures were vibrant with the wisdom of personal experience, and unforgettable for teachers as well as students, and there were student crowds around her whenever she was available. Her articles are core material for our dance students. She was a highly valued and esteemed collaborator for the dance research environment in Trondheim also in many other ways. She will continue to inspire in years to come.

Elsie Ivancich Dunin

Sharing living and tangible memories of Anca Giurchescu

Demonstrated by the reaction and sense of loss that flowed after the announcement about the passing of Anca, she has certainly become one of the memorable icons in our field of ethnochoreology. As with others who have shared personal living memories with Anca, I contribute a bit about our professional relationships that have their beginnings in 1967 and from my personal perspective have bearing on our ICTM Study Group on Ethnochoreology. I am appreciative of Sunni Bloland, Lisbet Torp, and Allegra Snyder reflecting upon their warm memories of Anca, and now I add mine to those early years, that younger generations will not have experienced or could have known.

It was Sunni Bloland who introduced me to Anca in 1967. Sunni and I were both faculty members with the University of California, she in northern California at Berkeley in the Department of Physical Education, and I, in southern California at Los Angeles in the Department of Dance—differing campuses and differing philosophic approaches to dance studies and teaching. In the 1960s most urban centers throughout California had popular recreational dance groups, clubs, and classes featuring "international folk dancing" (mostly European dances). Non-partner dances, such as the kolo from Yugoslavia, syrto from Greece, and hora type dancingfrom Israel were then at the top of recreational dance lists, and Romanian dances were being "discovered" to add to this list. Sunni was one of these very charismatic teachers, and she sought dance sources for her teaching, which took her in 1967 to Romania for several months supported by an esteemed Fulbright Scholarship and at that time extraordinary to be granted to a dance person. She had met Anca earlier (at least in 1965, during the Straznice Festival), and as Sunni reveals in her memorial, Anca was assigned to assist her during her Fulbright months in Romania. In the same year and supported by a grant from the United States Department of Health, Welfare, and Education, I became based in Yugoslavia to observe and to record Gypsy (Romani was not yet an introduced term) social occasions with dancing in Balkan countries, and since I would be in Romania for a short time, Sunni invited me to meet with Anca, her mentor in Romania. I remember this first encounter very well.

Anca was carefully fluent in English—not a common language in Soviet-associated Eastern Europe at that time, when the Russian language was stressed as a second language after World War Two. Yugoslavia's leader (Josip Broz Tito) severed ties with Stalin and the Soviets in 1948, and although Yugoslavia continued as a communist country, Americans were allowed with visas in 1951, but also invisibly scrutinized. Although introduced to mandatory Russian, Anca was already fluent in French and German. But three or four languages were considered normal and necessary knowledge in southeastern Europe. German was a principle language of communication among the East European government-supported "folklore" institute researchers (collectors) of "folkdance" and "folkmusic." Since 1957 when I experienced performing with one of the professional dance ensembles in Yugoslavia, and again in 1967, in my first professional fieldwork project with a portable camera and audio recorder, attending conferences, festivals, and searching for available literature. I had become familiar with the network of researchers in the Balkans, and had gained an understanding of what kind of research was conducted and shared throughout southeastern Europe. When I met Anca in 1967, we were not in sync with each other's methodologies. In southeastern and Eastern Europe, dance and music were collected, notated, and cataloged as products. At that time, I came from the US with not only recording a dance product, but also focusing on the dancers and dancing only within actual living social contexts (such as modeled by Gertrude Kurath and Joann Kealiinohomoku in the United States). I also had a working knowledge in Labanotation, and felt strongly that Yugoslavia and Hungary were more advanced with acceptance of Labanotation as the standard for all dance descriptions. Romania was using its own system created by Vera Proca [-Ciortea], and I felt it was counter-productive to develop individual national systems based on the local dance forms. Not only was it necessary to learn a notation system for body movements identified by culturally based language concepts, but many language family groups differed in contiguous countries, hindering facility toward comparative dance studies between countries.

Romania and other southeastern European countries were officially selective to the study of mainstream language groups in their multi-ethnic populations; Gypsy (Romani) cultures were not among them. But I do recall that Anca was a good listener in our initial conversations about Gypsy social events that I had encountered in Yugoslavia, and later while living in Denmark, she did begin to include Romani dance and music into her studies.

I did not have further professional contact with Anca during the 1970s when she was active with the relatively closed sub-group on folkdance terminology (I did not know German, and I was not interested in structural analysis from only a part of Europe. My reconnection was in the early 1980s through Sunni Bloland, who had encouraged Anca to complete a book about Romanian dances. Sunni was assisting with English, and she arranged for Anca to come to California to work together on their Romanian traditional dance (published in 1995). I invited Anca to UCLA to my Dance in the Balkans course. Since students did not have personal contact with dance in Romania or with literature in English, I usually showed parts of a documentary film from Göttingen's Institute about a Calus event, filmed in 1969. Pfingstvrauch der Kaluscharen. Tanzwettstreit zweier Gruppen in Priseaca. Since Anca was a consultant for the filming, she was able to lecture not only about the dancing in the Pentecost period ritual, but also the moral difficulties as a consultant with a "foreign" film director and crew. This was when I began to see another side of Anca, which I did not encounter in 1967. In the meantime she had had more contact with "westerners" studying dance from a cultural anthropology perspective, such as during ICTM's 1973 meeting in Bayonne and discussions with Adrienne Kaeppler. After Anca's defection with her family to Copenhagen (1979 and adding Danish to her list of languages), she had expansive connections with Lisbet and other northwestern Europeans with their viewpoints of "folkdance" studies. And she even began a Romani research project, relatively similar to what I was doing and discussed with her in 1967 and during our 1980s California encounters. I could see how her own perspective about fieldwork, theoretical approaches had expanded and matured beyond the work she left behind in Romania. She persevered new challenges in her scholarly life, as she did with her physical health issues over the same years.

Our next meaningful personal connections were initiated at ICTM world conferences in 1985 (Stockholm/Helsinki) and 1987 (East Berlin), followed by the historically monumental 1988 meeting in Copenhagen coordinated by Lisbet Torp with her Danish colleagues. They invited past members from Eastern Europe, scholars from Western Europe, North America, and the People's Republic of China. Allegra Snyder was the opening speaker with her presentation focusing on "context." I became more involved with Anca and her vision for the Study Group at this 1988 juncture. With Judy Van Zile, we constructed an organizational platform with a set of by-laws supporting elected officers; based in Denmark with William Reynolds as editor, a Study Group newsletter was published (after his passing (2004), Study Group communication was channeled in 2006 through a listserv ETNOKOR, now based at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.); the first compilation of dance research by members of the Study Group was produced in 1989 and made available through the UCLA Department of Dance; then Anca with László initiated organizations of sub-study groups at the 1990 Study Group symposium in Budapest, and 1991, a year later, co-edited by Adrienne, Anca, and Lisbet, the first dance issue of ICTM's Yearbook of traditional music was published.

Anca was not institutionally supported after her move to Denmark, so that her thoughtful and insightful research presentations and sub-study group reports found a venue through the symposium proceedings. A full list of her publications, beginning in 1957 though the year 1990 are shown in the 1991 volume of the Dance research published or publicly presented by members of the Study Group on Ethnochoreology; from 1988 each of her presentations given at biennial symposia appears in every proceedings except for 2008 in Kuala Lumpur (but where she was active by serving on the Program Committee). We tearfully missed Anca at the 2014 symposium in Korčula, but she was sensitively represented by younger scholars (Selena Rakočević, Liz Mellish, and Nick Green) who shared in Anca's last Sub-Study Group on Field Research Theory and Methods venture (2013) in a borderland area of Romania with Serbia.

Anca, we sadly missed you in Korčula, but your personal relationships with multitudes remain as living, fondly felt memories. However, the tangible evidence of your knowledge of dances in Romania will continue beyond living memories, through your book Romanian traditional dance (thank you Sunni), through the ICTM Study Group symposium model with proceedings in 1988 (thank you Lisbet), making possible a published history of the dance structure approach in East Europe in the co-edited Yearbook of traditional music 23 (1991)and later in Dance structures: perspectives on the analysis of human movement (2007) (thank you Adrienne), and a model of contextual thinking about dance communicated with Anca in the 1980s and offered in the 1988 meeting (thank you Allegra). There are many other markers in time through those who touched Anca during her brilliant and challenged life, but also those who were touched by Anca. I am blessed to be one of those.

Emma Petrosyan

Sweetheart Anca, we are very fond of you, you were very kind and attentive. Remember how during one of the conferences I Zhenya did not come to breakfast because we had little money. You and Adrienne came running after us. You were very smart and knew Romanian rituals. Last time we met with you in Vienna. You were hard to walk, but you bravely held. Today we have Easter and tomorrow memorial day. We light a candle for you and will proschatsya.

Francesco Gianattasio

I am very sad about these news ! Anca was one of the pioneers of ethnochoreology and a great friend of Italian ethnomusicology – a good natured scholar of extraordinary sharpness of thought, for whom I felt esteem and affection since the days of the seminar in Siena.

Gurbuz Aktas

I am very sad; she is a great loss.

Hande Devrim Küçükebe

I am grateful that I had the chance to have a glimpse of your everlasting energy, wisdom and love of life. You will always be remembered by all students with whom you shared all that so generously. Rest in peace Anca Giurchescu....

Helene Erikson

Anca was such a special friend and like a mother to me. Our field will not be the same without her. What a huge loss for all of us.

I first met Anca in Budapest in 1990 when I attended our conference for the first time with a small baby in my arms. Anca was so welcoming and encouraging and throughout the years she understood and supported my stance coming from both academia and the arts world and living in my world of applied dance ethnology. We were on many field trips together: three times in Romania, once in Bulgaria and once in Turkey. Those were some of the richest memories and none of them would have happened without Anca. She was such a force to be reckoned with. Rushing about in the field, doing twice the work and keeping longer hours than many of us younger ones. I was often rushing behind her making sure she had her asthma medicine because she was often more concerned with her research than her own well being. We have been roommates and co-conspirators and she always managed to be my mother AND my sister, my elder and my equal in the way she treated me...always with respect, attention and enthusiasm.
I will miss her so much!

Jacques Bouët

This is very sad news, but Anca will stay with us through her writings, in particular thanks to her consummate work on Romanian dance which, in my opinion, has been too little appreciated: Romanian Traditional Dance: A Contextual and Structural Approach. I am certain that many traditional dance clubs in the world are using this work to improve their practice of dance. It is also of great interest to ethnomusicologists specializing in Romania, who may use it to get a clearer picture of the musical structures. The influence of this work is far from exhausted. Also, I will forever keep in my mind Anca’s gentleness, good will, and intelligence.

Jörgen Torp

Anca was not only inspiring for work close to her own interests and environments, but also very supportive and appreciative for other aspects and directions of studies. I had done some collecting of music in Argentina during the 1980s: folk genres like chacarera, gato ..., music of aboriginees, own field work and recordings of "Volga Germans" in the province of Entre Rios..., before shifting to the tango. For me that was also a shift away from ethnological work, as I conceptualized tango as an "urban popular music" in an international "network". I was mainly a musicologist in the early 1990s, moreover not longer an "ethnomusicologist". I somehow got notice about a conference topic of "music and dance relationship" in a meeting of the ethnochoreology group, the meeting of 1994 in Skiernewice, Poland. So I went there. I was just visiting the conference for the first half of a week without giving a paper. What I imagined to be just a short visit came out to be a quite intensive relationship. The group as a whole presented a very friendly and nice environment, as you may know, but nobody more than Anca was inspiring newcomers to work in the group, and moreover she "urged" the investigations. Even in moments when I was criticizing the group's general concepts from a rather outsider point of view, she did not only accept it, but invited and urged for more.

The last time I met her in person was end of October of 2013 in Copenhagen, where we met in a little cafe in the center. Moving was very aching for her, but she nevertheless did not want to cancel our "meeting". She was scared for an upcoming operation in a hospital in early November. She joked that she would come to Korcula either hopping and jumping like a young girl or in a wheelchair. Finally she could not come to Korcula, but was still available, for skype conversations during the meeting.

Jan Elliott

My first encounter with Anca was through Elsie Dunin, who steered me toward Călușari as a focus for my first UCLA dance ethnography course in 1990. These baby steps involved writing analytical descriptions based on various cultural aspects of a dance event as seen through the eyes of others rather than directly. The sources on Căluş would have been incomplete without Anca's marvelous film and written contributions, thoroughly documenting a cultural event on the verge of great change.
I finally met her at the 1994 meeting in Skiernewice, Poland, and like many, stood awestruck while she spoke and conversed and argued and deepened our understanding of dance and culture in so many ways. In Cluj, Romania, I was finally able to spend significant time talking to her and benefiting from her deep knowledge, well-honed organizing skills and all-embracing enthusiasm. I can still hear her gravelly voice and wonderful laugh. Anca modeled confidence, determination, wisdom, openness and encouragement to all she touched. She can never be replaced. Hang on to your memories!

Jane Sugerman

What sad news for us all! Anca was a wonderful person and inspiration to us all. She will be very much missed.

Josefina Roma

I have been a friend of Anca for many years. I often invited her to Barcelona to give a lecture at my University, and it was always a pleasure and an enrichment for the students and for me. I know that ethnochoreology has lost one of its seminal researchers. She died on the Eve of Easter, and I hope that she will be with Christ in the very moment of resurrection.

I keep her presence as one of my best friends.

Kendra Stepputat

One evening at the symposium in Trest, when we were dancing for fun she got up, threw her crutches to the floor and joined the dance, hands and arms raised high. i will cherish that memory of her for as long as i live

Laura Leante

Her commitment to research and her contribution to scholarship on Romanian dance and more widely ethnochoreology have been remarkable and she will be greatly missed. 

Liam Barnard

I remember anca from limerick. A lovely warm, and eternally youthful and sharp outlook and mind.  A beautiful spirit, I remember a discussion with her in one if the breakout sessions, I'll never forget that glint in her eye. A woman who was dedicated to the pursuit and sharing of knowledge.

Liz Mellish & Nick Green

Although we did not meet Anca in person until 2009, she was out inspiration during our early years of Romanian dance research. Once we got to know her in person she was always kind and encouraging to us and supported our passion for researching Romanian dance as outsiders. We treasure every moment we spent together and every discussion that we had. We were honoured that Anca was able to join us during the ICTM field research organised by Selena Rakocevic during Easter 2013 in the village of Sviniţa on the Danube Gorge in Romania. It was a joy to watch Anca at work, still a formidable example despite her health problems. More recently we were able to keep in touch through skype chats, when she was always cheerful and full of new ideas and observations on her past fieldwork despite her failing health.

In the field of Romanian dance research there is (and will never be) anyone one like her, she was a walking encyclopaedia that can never be replaced.

We will miss her greatly though we will always feel her presence among us.

Margaret Beissinger and Speranţa Rădulescu

Even though I finally met Anca only in spring 2012 (Speranţa knew her from decades ago in the communist period) when she, Speranţa, and I began to work together on a coedited volume on manele, I have many wonderful memories of her.  Anca was a lively, spirited, and supremely optimistic person with so much compassion and enthusiasm even though she lived through many difficult days.  She was truly young at heart and open-minded in so many ways.  Until the end of her life she was perpetually researching new and exciting things, going to the field, exploring fresh topics, writing, and attending conferences until she literally could no longer travel.  The fact that at her age she was working--during the past few years--on manele is a perfect example of how “youthful” 80-something Anca was.  As recently as two years ago, she would go with Speranţa, me, and others who could have been her grandchildren to wild manea nightclubs in Bucharest--where the evening’s entertainment wouldn’t start until around midnight and we would stay until dawn.  She gleefully enjoyed and took note of every minute of the earsplitting music performed by the flashy, youthful manelişti and the frenzied dancing by young Romanians at and on tables. 

Besides the important contributions Anca made to the study of dance, one of her very special qualities was her ability to relate to people.  Anca made you feel as if you had known her for years and that what you thought and had to say was worth listening to--truly a rare quality.  I have precious memories of working together with Anca and Speranţa on our book, not to mention enjoying long talks and plenty of laughter about so many different things and on so many different levels.  With Anca you could do that: despite our differences in age, we related both as professionals devoted to our work as well as individual women, each with her own personal journey.  We also corresponded frequently once the manea project brought us together.  Anca’s inimitable spirit and generosity came out in her emails too. 

Speranţa and I have talked much about Anca.  We both feel such a sense of loss.  Speranţa put it succinctly when she told me recently that she thinks of Anca so often and of her will and the courage that she had in life, of her remarkable insight and tact.  She told me that she continues to lament the loss of Anca and can’t believe that she is no longer with us.  I agree wholeheartedly.  Speranţa and I both loved Anca--the genuine, warm, intelligent person that she was; we mourn her and miss her terribly.  We also cherish the many beautiful memories we have of her (Speranţa’s, of course, already from many years ago)--an extraordinary person with character, wisdom, dignity, and an endless source of inner strength.

Maria Koutsouba

When the greatness of a woman meets life’s modesty, then people like Anca Giurchescu are born...

As we say in Greece: “Ας είναι ελαφρύ το χώμα που την σκεπάζει [free translation: Let the soil that covers her be light]”.

My condolences to her blood family,

My condolences to her ‘dance family’.

Mats Melin

Very saddened to hear of the passing of Anca Giurchescu. May she rest in peace. She was a true inspiration for me. Vila i frid Anca.

Miriam Phillips

I have such fond memories of walking up the top of one of the steep windy ocean cliffs in Ireland. Could not believe the stamina she had! Such a warm and wonderful scholar. What a loss to our community.es, a great soul, a big heart, a piercing mind, an amazing teacher who carved the way for so many of us. Her legacy lives on.  

May you soar with the angels of dance Anca.

Nancy Ruyter

It is indeed sad to have lost Anca. She was dear to all of us and an amazing researcher who opened areas to us that had not previously been explored.

I first became acquainted with Anca through Sunni Bloland. They had co-authored the book Romanian Traditional Dance that was published in 1995. I'm not sure when I actually met Anca, but I enjoyed so much knowing her through our ethnochoreology meetings and in personal contact with her.
Let us be thankful for knowing this wonderful person.

Orfhlaith Ni Bhriain

Sad to hear of the passing of Anca Giurchescu. She was an inspirational person and scholar. We have very fond memories of her visit to Limerick

Peter Cooke

Anca was such a good friend and of course a very fine scholar indeed. Yes, we will miss her.

Placida Staro (Dina)

For me Anca was a myth of research before becoming a real person. She started to act on me like a natural power, but in our meetings over the last twenty years has increasingly been a teacher of life. I had studied the Syllabus when I asked myself the problem of the analysis of the dance. For that reason Ana, Eva, Anca, Roderick, Adrienne, were mythological beings to me. I invited Anca in Italy in 1983. But it was not possible to meet in that year. In Berlin in 1987, on the occasion of the 29th ICTM Conference: 30 July - 6 August 1987, I met her: Lisbet Torp played the flute in the hotel lobby and then I met her dancing. Anca was provocative with me. I presented a report on the ritual dance companies in Northern Italy. I was a young teacher of drama and a musician, I did not live in Anglo-Saxon countries and then starting from Laban and semiotics I was reinventing the wheel. But she surprised me: she had read my articles in Italian. I was excited, I did not expect that someone outside Italy had read those articles. In those articles I defined the "dance event" as analytical perspective although I used the pins with different colors, because I had invented them. So she urged me to attend international meetings, suggesting to adhere to international conventions in regard to the tools of formal analysis, although then my need was to document the reality in Italy. And when I say "urge", I mean literally make me dizzy dint of repeating that it was crucial to me to participate. According to her style of attack front and to the sides. On the other hand I had Roderick Lange, even more determined. So we found ourselves also in Copenhagen, an extraordinary meeting for the thickness of the discussions and also for the wonder of the sing and dance together. And then in other symposium and substudy groups. She was always very supportive with the fate of the research on dance in Italy. Anca has supported me in first person when I proposed in Korcula 2000 to hold a symposium in Italy in a small town on the mountain. Then Anca was crucial in that year, 2004, to manage the relationship between the participants in the symposium and the locals even if it was not her role. She was generous as usual. It was not easy for me to argue with her, as with others, because I was always afraid of misunderstanding and misinterpretation. But it was rather simple to understand each other on the things of life. We were not always agreed, but I learned a lot from her experience and from her research experience as part of life. Even farther, in 2012 we improvised a ritual together nearby the sacred stones in Ireland! Anca was a continuous motion and I like to think of her moving, as always.

We have lost a natural power and a very clever mind. 

Selena Rakočević

It is so sad. We are all blessed to know her.

Socializing with Anca during a joint field work of the ICTM Sub-Study Group on field research theory and method in 2013 is really unique experience that I will always carry in my heart. I was really impressed, not only watching how Anca was interacting with the locals, but rather by the strength, passion and desire for information she constantly and charismatically passed to others. She was everywhere all the time, talking with researchers and locals, recording short shots with her little camera, observing situation and moving quickly despite her age (she was already more than 80) and difficulties in walking. As a shining memory, her passion for research and charisma in contact with people will forever inspire me.

Stephanie Smith

I'm so sorry to hear this news. Anca will be hugely missed! She looms large in my many recollections of past study group meetings.

Sunni Bloland

I’m flooded with memories of our dear friend and colleague, Anca Giurchescu. When we first met, I remember asking Anca if “there was much dance in Romania?” Oh yes, she could have said, as much as there are grains of salt in the sea. Although I was a well-trained modern American dancer, I only knew folkdance as an occasional recreational activity. I was curious to see and know the origins of the dance I was teaching; I had a lot to learn about Ethnochoreology.

As a first in those days (circa 1967), I received a Fulbright to study dance in Romania. Mind you, Romania was a communist country at that time and our State Department was happy to send a nice innocent non-political artist type. As a staff member of the Institute of Ethnography and Folklore (IEF), Anca was assigned to outline a dance itinerary for me. She chose a typical village with a rich dance repertoire as well as a team of Calus. The other center of dance was in Transylvania with its separate gender dances and couple dances. Anca’s choices for me were perfect as I got to see and hear the great fund of village dance and music that she knew so well.

It was an enlightening education to see Anca in action. When she arrived in these villages, she was enthusiastically welcomed by the locals who got to know her and appreciate her questions and observations.  As a gifted staff member of IEF, she was respectful of the villager’s dance, music and customs. She was the ideal ethnochoreologist in that she revered the villagers who were keeping their precious folklore alive.

While the State Department kept track of me, the Securitate kept track of Anca.

The day I was leaving Romania, Anca gave me a most beautiful icon on glass from her collection. I treasure this special, original Romanian work of art not only for its intrinsic beauty, but because it also keeps Anca present in my mind.

I continued to remain in contact with Anca. The University of California at Berkeley supported us in our collaboration, which resulted in the book, “Romanian Traditional Dance”. I enjoyed many summer visits to Romania for additional field work with Anca, and visits by Anca to Berkeley. During these visits, we got to know each other well and to appreciate each other at our homes. I found Anca to have an extraordinary mind with a spirit of thoroughness and creativity. We wrote our book together with Anca dictating to me in English. She never studied English formally, but she learned to read and speak it as if she were born into an English speaking culture. Romanian was her mother tongue, but she was proficient in German and French, and later English and Danish.  

Outside of the book, Anca helped to arrange and organize a tour of Americans to Romania that I led a few times in the 70’s.

I continued to work with Anca after she, and her family (husband Lucian and daughter Ileana) gained asylum in Denmark. I continued my visits to her new home in Copenhagen, and she continued her visits to my home in Berkeley, with side trips such as to UCLA. She told me she remembered her Berkeley days very fondly and because of her hospitality I came to appreciate Copenhagen.

I will always remember her as a most knowledgeable, focused, intelligent and gracious person. I was impressed with her ability to learn and speak many languages, and that she continued to be a driving force in dance research well into her 80’s. People who knew her learned to appreciate her talents and grace. The world has lost a very special human being. She was a best friend and a treasured colleague.

Svanibor Pettan

Anca had a very special place in our lives and also in the history of ICTM.

Theresa Buckland

I have nothing but positive memories of Anca, such a force and spirit to move and engage us all in a lifetime study of dance. She led us all by her shining example (I really missed her sharp mind and generous person from Korcula last year - it just wasn't the same without her presence). My first meeting with her was in 1984 at the University of Surrey conference. I was familiar with her published work from structural analysis and semiotic approaches that I'd explored in my PhD - to me she was already a legend and I would get to hear her present at the conference. There at breakfast sitting just across was this vibrant, striking woman who argued so passionately and compassionately about dance and dancers - and many other things besides. I was bowled over (and remained so) by her intellect, her kindness, her knowledge and rigour and especially by her open capacity to seek and to learn. At that moment, it was like coming out of the dark into a warm shining light after years of personal almost solitary research - (when dance studies, especially into folk dance, were regarded rather negatively in the UK). Sharing her life experiences made me realise the genuine hardships and struggles she had endured to continue her work - it was sobering but truly inspiring. Her generosity and encouragement of new scholars was always exhilarating to see and to experience. She touched the lives of so many and changed them in such a positive way as our personal memories testify. Anca continues to be a beacon from whom we can recharge our batteries - I will be forever grateful for all those wonderful times I had the honour to work with her.

Urmimala Sarkar

I only met Anca in Limerick, but read Anca's work first when started working on my MA dissertation. I feel sad about not knowing her for a longer time, but the memory of the dinner sitting with her, Irene and Adrienne and the party after the conference, made a deep impression. I can understand the sadness and loss felt by the four sisters of Anca and all the others whose lives she has touched in so many ways. May her work and enthusiasm, continue to be an inspiration for generations to come.
Remembering her with respect and fondness,

Uwe U. Pätzold

my deepest condolences to all colleagues on Ancas' passing away. Dance certainly has lost one of its most important mentors, and everbody of us has lost a great colleague and teacher.  

Yvonne Hunt

I don't recall when I actually met Anca for the first time perhaps because I had been aware of her name and her work for such a long time before that first meeting. It seems like I have always known her. She was always so encouraging about my work, emphasizing that it did not matter that my route to the research did not come through academia. Anca was tremendously generous and giving and more than happy to share her knowledge and always freely gave her support and suggestions for improving the work. She was/is a mentor for so many of us! Rest in Peace, dearest Anca!