What to do this weekend in Bucharest

At a loose end? BR brings you the best of Bucharest’s cultural highlights for the weekend ahead.

OUTDOOR

Fitness in park

Roaba de Cultura – Herastrau Park

July 19, from 19.00 – Fitness revolution, World Class- Kick Box with Alexandra Anastasiu.

July 20, from 09.00 – Fitness revolution, World Class and Running Club with Ionut Trandafir and Razvan Iliescu

Poiana Urbana

University Square

July 19, from 21.00 – Concert Mumford and Sons – The Road to Red Rocks

July 20, from 21.00 – Fusion Punk Jazz Concert Loungerie II and Drum & Bass, Reggae, Ska Concert East Roots

July 21, from 21.00 – Italian shortsup night

Poetry and Jazz

Mogosoaia Palace

July 20, from 16.00 – Ambiental String Quartet

July 21, from 17.00 – Poetry and Jazz

Caragiale’s Bucharest Festival

Until September 15

Old City, Children’s World Park, Conu’ Iancu’s restaurant

Until September 15, the State Jewish Theater, Tandarica Theater, Comedy Theater, Metropolis Theater, Masca Theater, Nottara Theater, National University of Theater and Film and Hyperion University presents the second edition of Caragiale’s Bucharest Festival. The event will include comedy, classical, modern theater and music hall performances, but also various-genre music, which can be seen in Old City, Children’s World Park and Conu’ Iancu’s restaurant at Hala Traian.

In terms of music, the festival’s organizers prepared fanfare music, Romanian traditional folk music sung by the famous Maria Tanase, operreta and opera music.

The admission is free of charge. The entire program of the festival can be seen here, in Romanian language only.

DISCOVER BUCHAREST

Architectural tour in Bellu Cemetery – the national pantheon of Romania

July 20, 10.30-13.00

Reservations: v.mandache@gmail.com / 0040 (0)728.323.272

Tour available in Romanian and English, RON 35

The tour offers a guide through the less conventional subject of after-life or funerary architecture found within the confines of Bellu Cemetery, the most famous and exquisitely embellished necropolis of Romania, the equivalent in these parts of Europe of Paris’ Père Lachaise or London’s Highgate cemeteries. It may be of interest to any of you visiting the city as a tourist or on business looking to find out more about its fascinating historic architecture and identity.

Architectural walking tour in Gara de Nord area

July 21, 10.30-13.00

Reservations: v.mandache@gmail.com / 0040 (0)728.323.272

Tour available in Romanian and English, RON 35

The tour offers a guide through an architecturally diverse area surrounding Bucharest’s communication hub with the rest of Romania, the grandiose Northern Train Station (Gara de Nord), an edifice combining stern classical outlines with vitalist Art Deco details. The local built landscape is characterised by interesting old hotels and guest houses, former entrainment places, the famous Roads and Bridges School, which is hosted in a remarkable Fin de Siècle university building, a traditional produce market and a multitude of dwellings built by the railway workers an other highly skilled professionals in styles ranging from picturesque Little Paris, flamboyant Neo-Romanian to fine Art Deco and Modernist.

EXHIBITION

Cucuteni, rediscovered European prehistoric treasures

Sutu Palace

Until July 25

The exhibition will display over 100 archaeological items over 5,000 years old, offering clues into the lost meanings of spiritual and material life, but also allowing insight into the aesthetic and technological refinement of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture.

Visual Power: 21st Century Native American Artists/ Intellectuals

America 24/7

The National Library

The American Bucharest Corner was inaugurated on June 20 at the National Library and two exhibitions take place: “Visual Power: 21st Century Native American Artists/ Intellectuals.” which shows Native American contributions as scholars, professors, museum curators, and writers as well as makers of traditional fine arts, video and photography to document their cultural heritage and their struggle for sovereignty and a second poster exhibit, “America 24/7”, accompanied by a book, the result of a project by American author and publisher, David Elliot Cohen, and American photographer, Rick Smolan. More than 25,000 digital photographers across the U.S. – including 36 Pulitzer Prize winners – responded to the invitation to take pictures of their towns, families, neighbors and friends for 24 hours a day for seven days. The best photos capturing the diverse authentic America were included in the exhibit. More details, here.

Q.E.D. by Mircea Cantor

The National Museum of Contemporary Art

Until April 2014

More than 1,200 people have attended the opening of the first local solo exhibition of one of the most important young artists to emerge on the international scene over the last decade: Mircea Cantor, winner of the Prix Marcel Duchamp Award 2011. The QED exhibition, the largest survey of the artist’s works to date, comprises 30 pieces. More details here.

The Human Body

Antipa Museum

Until August 4

One of the most realistic exhibitions in the world, The Human Body, will stop for the first time in Bucharest, at AntipaMuseum, from March 22 to June 30. The exhibition includes more than 200 pieces – human bodies which through dissection of organs and tissue offer a three dimensional perspective of the miracle of the human body. More about this exhibition, here.

“Live tropical butterflies”

AntipaMuseum

Until July 31

Starting on May 1, the AntipaMuseum will host the “Live tropical butterflies”, a temporary exhibition organized in collaboration with the “House of Butterflies” and the Vulticulus Geography Society. Visitors will have the possibility of seeing over 30 species of exotic butterflies flying freely in the special greenhouse set up within the “Antipa” Museum’s garden, but they can also witness the “birth” of butterflies. The exhibition can be visited from May 1 to July 31. Tickets cost RON 10 per child/student and RON 12 per adult/pensioner.

Treasures of China

The National Museum of History

Until July 30

Local culture enthusiasts are now able to enjoy a traveling exhibition of China’s Terracotta Warriors: thousands of life-size terracotta figures from an army prepared for battle. Found by coincidence in 1974, they are now considered one of the greatest archeological discoveries of modern times. The exhibition features 101 rare objects – including the Terracotta Warriors – from one of the largest burial sites ever built, the Terracotta Army of the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. Four is the maximum number of these figures permitted outside China in a single exhibition. More details about the exhibition, here.

Oana Vasiliu

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