The National Festival of Traditional Christmas and New Year Customs is organized in Brasov every year. This event gathers folk ensembles from all around the country, as well as famous names of the Romanian folk stage. Prestigious folk ensembles of the Hungarian, German and Romani ethnics join them and the show is thus complete. The purpose is to bring up-to-date the former customs and traditions which are included in the repertoires of these folk groups.
Familiarity with the custom
?The Festival aims at being an event of popular culture combining the authentic with tradition, facilitating the contact between generations, bringing before the audience the cultural values defining the traditional community and making the public aware of the inestimable value of the patrimony. The event offers the opportunity to get acquainted with Christmas and New Year customs: Steaua, Turca, Irozii, Capra and Plugurorul. All these customs are brought up-to-date on stage in front of the audience?, says Adrian Văluşescu, the Manager of the Centre for Traditional Culture Preservation and Promotion of Brasov county.
Turca
A tradition named ?Turca? takes place in several villages from the region Rupea ? Fagaras: Comana de Sus and de Jos, Venetia de Sus and de Jos, Cuciulata and Sambata. The men group is made up in this case of five lads who choose a Bailiff, two men dancing Turca, and two cellar men ? administrators. One of the lads is masked as a goat, his costume being sewn with coloured ribbons and a belt with bells. The lads, accompanied by fiddlers, start the Turca and walk over all houses on Christmas Eve. The hosts offer them in exchange knot-shaped bread, meat and money. People say that both the carol singers who bring Turca and the hosts shall be rich and healthy the next year.
The symbole of masks
The mask is also used by Hungarians in a scenario called Borica, practiced by the Csangos from the region Sacele - Tarlungeni, on Christmas Eve. The masked person accompanies the group of carol singers, the zoomorphous mask being worn by a lad from the group. It represents the symbol of the God who dies and is reborn every year. Young people dressed in the folk costumesperform a specific dance belonging both to lads and to the masked person. People say that this dance hunts away malign demons and bring out a rich new year.
