Paper short abstract:

We will present some observations and analysis taking into consideration both perspectives (inside and outside) emphasizing on the mechanisms of preservation and handing down of Căluş ritual correlated with the actual scientific approach in Romania.

Paper long abstract:

Since 2005 when The Căluş Ritual was included in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, both the academic that studies this cultural phenomenon, and the rural communities that preserve and disseminate it changed their attitude.

After they succeed to persuade the scientists and the performing arts experts about the high age and the magical functions of Calus, the Romanian scholars initiated new research projects which aim to find an answer to the question: "What means this ritual in our days for performers and beneficiaries?"

The bearers of this tradition are aware of the its exceptional universal value and they take pains to confer the brilliancy of an unmistakable identity emblem. To fulfill the ritual and to decipher it means to understand its complex significance based on a mystic relation between the sacred and the profane world, this fact being substantiated by the insiders' attitude.

In the same time, to perceive and to construe the contemporary mutations of this ancient ritual means to analyze it as a dynamic and efficient traditional phenomenon, this attitude typifying the outsiders' intercession.

Our paper aims to present the mood of performers (calusari-dancers) by laying its agonistic features which is essential in the assertion of this male group, and in the same time, to illustrate the acceptance and understanding attitude that human groups - both those from the rural and from the urban space - take during the Pentecost week.