foto: Bogdan Iordache, Cultura la dubă
He left Romania for Argentina at 19, and dance opened his horizons to a new world, full of possibilities, to diversity and understanding. He studied ballet, modern dance, and contemporary dance, was part of a church choir, danced in one of Paris’s famous cabarets, and settled in the French capital, where he is a dancer, choreographer, and dance teacher.
Decisively influenced by the great Romanian choreographer Gigi Căciuleanu and trained by his partner, Ruxandra Racoviță, Daniel Pop carries on the love for contemporary dance and enriches it with his own ideas, movements, and emotions.
I met him in Paris just hours before he was to go on stage at the Opéra National de Paris, where he is part of the opera Manon.
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Daniel Pop’s story begins 37 years ago in Târgu-Mureș. Born in one of Romania’s most ethnically mixed communities, he grew up surrounded by diversity, which later helped him adapt to the different cultures he encountered.
“I was raised by grandparents, parents, teachers with this idea that if you learn a foreign language, you’ll have an extra chance in life. They told me: be curious, be open, accept diversity.
In Târgu Mureș, we have this cohabitation of space with those of Hungarian origin. Our neighbors are Hungarian, my mother went to primary school in Hungarian, and so I grew up with this exercise of multiculturalism. It seemed very important to me as an adult, a professional, if I have something to say and am encouraged and warmly welcomed into a new space, then to come and accept this challenge and propose such an exercise of artistic creation in several languages, where at some point, in fact, language was no longer a barrier,” says Daniel.
He always felt a magnetic attraction to dance, even if his father would have preferred him to box, because “boys need to know how to defend themselves.”
“Being a child with bronchial asthma, I had quite fragile health at that time and was forbidden to do sports. I danced from a very young age in front of the television, imitating stars like Marilyn Monroe, Britney Spears. I had a lot of habits that no one understood. I went to ballet somewhat secretly.
I was beaten quite a lot as a child, in front of the block. I was very whiny, often sick, I wasn’t allowed to eat ice cream. I went to classical dance because what I saw on television toughened me up a lot, and I told myself, ‘look how beautiful, how graceful, how good it is there.’
I used to imitate gestures a lot; I imitated my mother who smoked and I secretly smoked pencils. I watched some films about cabaret and taught imaginary children dance and all sorts of subjects.
And I say this now because, after all, I danced for many years in a cabaret, I became a dancer, and I also became a teacher. Somehow these childhood dreams became reality.
How were your childhood dance classes?
I went to ballet classes in Târgu Mureș, at the general school gym. At one point, my parents were called to give their consent for me to receive a scholarship to the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow.
My teacher said it would be good for me to try to go to a ballet school in Russia because boys are needed and because I am tall and could develop very well.
I think ballet saved me from my medical condition, in the sense that I developed my lung capacity. However, my parents were still very worried and did not agree to my leaving for Moscow.
What did you do after that?
At 18, when I finished high school, I had the opportunity to go to Argentina to a dance school, through a very good friend from Târgu Mureș, who had been there for two years studying cinematography.
I was supposed to prepare for the choreography section of UNATC in Bucharest, but it didn’t inspire me at all to go to Bucharest. I think there were also these stereotypes about the relationship between the province and Bucharest. At that time, I was part of a church choir and a high school theater group.
Those at Ariel Theater in Târgu Mureș, where I was already working as an amateur, told me: “Dance is against the clock; go for dance because you can do theater at any age.”
And somehow my work is somewhere at the intersection of theater and dance. My personal artistic projects and interests led me on this path, so somehow I still managed to have some contact with theater.”
In Argentina, however, he was to discover contemporary dance, in a completely different way than he perceived dance, through the lens of the rigors imposed by ballet exercises. There he studied at a dance school and worked in parallel as a waiter to ensure an income.
At the time, Gigi Căciuleanu, who was to become his mentor, was the artistic director of the National Ballet of Chile.
“He was already working with professional dancers; I wasn’t prepared for contemporary dance at that level, and he proposed that I come to Paris to attend the Conservatory, where his lifelong partner, Ruxandra Racoviță, was a professor. She had the Contemporary Dance department, and I was her last generation of students. She trained me in contemporary dance, and after I finished, I started dancing in a company where Gigi Căciuleanu staged shows.
And I worked in that company for about 5-6 years, touring through Europe, dancing a lot here in France and Italy.
What convinced you to make the transition from ballet to contemporary dance?
A very great embarrassment I felt in a contemporary dance class in Buenos Aires where, effectively, after 10 minutes, I picked up my bag to leave. When I put my hand on the doorknob, the teacher stopped the class and said: “Are you sure you want to leave? I think there’s something for you; you just have to give it time.” And it was a challenge, because I’ve always been very agitated, very wild, preoccupied with a hundred things, somewhat dispersed in space, and contemporary dance opened up a vision where anything was possible.
But where did that embarrassment come from?
From some movements that were not necessarily in my comfort zone or in what I knew how to do, namely the very rigorous ABC of classical dance.
When I discovered contemporary dance, I didn’t know these elements; everything was about weight, about breathing, about falling to the ground, about slowing down, movement about speeds, different volumes, bodies. All these things I liked very much and embarrassed me at the same time.
I was somehow afraid to throw myself harder. I saw that there’s always room for more, and in classical dance there’s room for more and movements can be perfected, but classical dance goes through a certain repetition of movement until it becomes perfect, whereas in contemporary dance, that doesn’t exist.
Contemporary dance has more to do with movement that will be nourished by a thought, by an emotion behind it, with deciphering certain cultures and subjects. I think it’s something much more universal and much more open to people.
And you made the complete transition? You no longer danced ballet?
Yes, I continued classical dance as training, because it seemed very rigorous and very important for the body and for body posture. Continuing with classical dance is a kind of morning prayer, but I plunged into the world of contemporary dance, being very convinced that this is the path I want to take.
I also had this inclination towards the world of theater; I really liked talking about different subjects, having different characters, not necessarily being in this world of the romantic prince who has to carry the princess or the swan through space.
Then, in Argentina, I also discovered the world of modern dance, namely jazz, musical. And when I arrived in Paris, apropos of what you work to support yourself, I auditioned for a very famous cabaret here, Paradis Latin – the cabaret that is placed in the same line as Moulin Rouge and Lido. It was built by Gustave Eiffel in an architecture very similar to that of the tower.
It’s a cabaret where the cancan dance was invented and first danced in Paris.
I worked there for 5 years at night, so I could do what I liked during the day – contemporary dance. I was somehow between the two worlds, the world of night and the world of day.
And I also taught in a modern dance club and various body maintenance techniques.
Why did you choose to continue doing this in Paris? Was there no place for contemporary dance in Romania? Or in Argentina?
In Paris, I found my place, and I really liked the diversity. I think what I had to say had to do with something very universal; I liked having colleagues from all over the world.
Then here there is an artist’s status, an “intermittence du spectacle” regime.
This wage system is unique in the world. It is a self-sustaining system. Depending on what you declare and what taxes you pay to the state, they then ensure you a decent living between projects.
How has being part of this much more open world of contemporary dance changed you on a human level?
I believe that contemporary dance is about a lot of introspection and it is an intimate and very internal journey of one’s own self, of being. At the same time, you can be a messenger, a connecting point between cultures, between people, between different languages, between different forms of expression.
I don’t think I would be the same if I hadn’t lived in Argentina for three years and if I hadn’t immersed myself in a Latin American culture.
And regarding tradition, identity, and where I come from, I have always tried to preserve this very beautiful and varied relief of Transylvania, the land where I was born, and to bring it through movements, through a certain melancholy, into dance.”
At the time of our meeting in Paris, Daniel was preparing to go on stage at the Opéra Bastille, where he has been part of the production and cast of the opera Manon since 2020. Following an audition, he was selected for the dance corps. Then the celebrated tenor Benjamin Bernheim chose him as his stage partner for several scenes, so in some performances, he is an actor. In parallel, he was also appointed choreography assistant.
“The choreographic proposal for this show has quite classical and neoclassical content, but also has jazz, modern, and contemporary dance influences. Based on these competencies acquired through the multitude of aesthetics my body has gone through during my years of study, I managed to get this casting.
From the outside, it seems that this multidisciplinary approach is increasingly common in the world of opera and ballet in Paris. I’ve seen shows where hip-hop dancers have performed on stage alongside tenors and sopranos. How is this modernization of a classical world viewed from within?
I think France has always been avant-garde and has aimed to experiment with new forms. Artistic transversality and this interdisciplinarity have found a cradle in France, through its history, through its revolutions. These revolutions were also felt in the arts, because an artist is an active citizen of society through the work he does, through the risks he takes, and through this universality with which he responds to new challenges.
The last few years in France, it seems to me, have been about breaking these barriers, about trying to go hand in hand with this idea of democratizing dance, of opening up spaces a lot, of mixing the world of professional dancers with amateur dancers.
At the state level, cultural policies have been designed in such a way that dance reaches many new spaces, and even large institutions, such as the opera, bring new voices from certain territories very far from classical forms. Of course, there have been controversies, and there always are controversies. If you look, for example, at the Louvre pyramid, there was a big scandal because something totally innovative, something angular, was intervened in a heritage space, and there were all sorts of conspiracies.
It’s a very clear example that we can live in a very large diversity, and this was also the reason why I stayed here.
Because daily I met new people, from new cultures, from new countries, and it was somehow an adopted land where we all felt equal together.
Daniel Pop, dancer and choreographer and artist Sylvie Bu, Paris 2025/ photo: Bogdan Iordache, Cultura la dubăAnd from a geographical point of view, it was a strategy to be in Paris because I could go anywhere, east, west, north, south, very easily and return here, as the French say, to a pied-à-terre, having a foot very anchored in this culture and in this diversity.
Have you also become a French citizen?
Yes, after 12 years of living here, as a European citizen with the same rights, after all, as the French. It was a personal decision to also take French citizenship because it seemed to me that it somehow crowns a certain effort I made to understand, without judging, why the French are cold and distant, when, in fact, they are just reserved. I came from a collective education, like communism, to the land of enlightenment thinkers, philosophers, great thinkers, where individualism is paramount and where a person, an individual, must learn to fend for himself.
For me, it was very clear that I am like them, and a citizenship does not cancel the one I have and the identities I have, but it is something that enriches me, something that completes me and makes me feel more complex.”
Although he is already perfectly integrated in France, Daniel frequently returns to Romania, where he has also laid the foundations for an artistic residency in Saschiz, Transylvania. This summer, his project, entitled International Artistic Residencies Camp “LEGĂTURI” (CONNECTIONS), is already in its 4th edition. Every year, international and national artists are invited to meet students from our vocational faculties, as well as the local community.
“I feel at home in Transylvania. And in the places where I grew up, where I am always welcomed with open arms, and where we have the camp, I feel that I receive a lot of trust in the artistic formats I propose.
In Saschiz, I propose a mix of different cultures and worlds: that of art school students, with internationally renowned and national artists, with children from culturally disadvantaged rural areas, with key people in their communities, namely those who work in education and tell children about our activities.
In the first year, they were a little more reluctant when they heard so many different languages on the street, in their village; it was something very new. But when I brought a fashion designer who presented at Fashion Week in Paris, they came, stood close to the door, very quiet, listened to this artist with whom I moderated a discussion about his journey, about how he markets his products, about how he creates in Paris. And at the end, when a video presentation of the Fashion Week runway ended, they were the first to shout bravo and applaud.
Then, I think of the children who took eco-fashion workshops with this designer; they learned to sew, to give new life to an old garment.
All through gestures and through body language, they were able to connect. And then, for me, that was clear proof that when we meet and try to communicate with our bodies, we overcome many barriers.”
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This article is part of the “France Week” series, an initiative by Cultura la dubă supported by BNP Paribas. So far, within this project, Cultura la dubă has presented the stories of 22 Romanian artists and cultural figures based in France.
