The Eliznik Romanian Web Pages

Romania is rapidly becoming a modern country and from January 2007 will be part of a larger European Community, but the hard times during the 20th century has preserved a rural life that disappeared without record in most of Europe. Thus, Romania is possibly unique in Europe in the range of folklore that has continued to recent times. In addition, Romania was the boundary of western European empires and the Ottoman Empire which has left the imprint of both of these cultures on the archaic traditions.

Some years ago we put together a booklet to supplement a Romanian national dance syllabus in the UK. This formed the basis of our first website. Since then we have continued to enlarge the website to cover as many aspects of Romanian folklore and history as our time allows. Our aim is to use the website as part of our continued learning and provide a source of information in English on the internet.

But why are two English people doing this? We are Nick Green and Liz Mellish. We both started dancing when young and developed our initial interests in ballet and English folk music and dance into a life long interest in south east European music, dance and customs. Since our first visits to Romania in 1988-1990, we have centred our researches on Romania and travelled there many times, both as tourists and to attend dance seminars... We were founder members of the London Romanian Folk dance group, Mãrţişorul, and have taught Romanian dance workshops for the Society for International Folk Dancing and Imperial Society of Teachers of Dance in the UK for around 15 years.

Liz is currently a mature PhD student at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London, Her research area is Romanian Folk Performance Ensembles, and her main academic interests are in the anthropology and ethnology of south east Europe with particular reference to Romania.

We would love to make contact with anyone interested in Romanian folk music, dance, costume, or customs, or who was a member of an ensemble in Romania, or interested in participating in Romanian folk dance in London.