24/06/2026
Tulnic: A Mediator Between Oral Traditions, Authority and the Performing Arts
Lector: Dragoș Rusu / The Attic
"In 2019 I curated a project for Belgium's Europalia Arts Romania festival. This project formed an ensemble of traditional Tulnicărese (women from Alba county who play the traditional Tulnic instrument) who performed alongside an original electronic composition by . The performances took place in Brussels and Leuven during the festival days, and in Bucharest and Brașov in 2024.
To illustrate how the nationalist discourse of traditions is also reflected in Tulnic culture, I apply Hobsbawm’s concept of invented traditions. Many traditions that »claim to be old are often quite recent and sometimes consciously invented« (Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1992) by identifiable historical actors. My research used qualitative sociological methods: interviews, focus groups, participant and non-participant observation, field recordings, walking ethnography, photographic elicitation, and the snowball technique. The organological documentation was based on studies of the tulnic and its related instrument, the Swiss alpenhorn.
The tulnic has evolved from a communication tool to a musical instrument and is now a handcrafted object. Since studies on the tulnic are quite limited, I highlight certain sonic traits and capabilities of this instrument through the anthropology of sound. Following sound as the supreme authority, I emphasize deep and thick listening (Schulze 2023) as a research method. Using the Europalia Arts Festival Romania in Belgium (2019) as a case study, I argue that technology can continuously question and transform oral practices and traditions. What are the implications and outcomes of transforming invented traditions into performing arts through experimental means? The risks relate to perpetuating colonial and hegemonic practices, where a central entity borrows and transforms cultural features from an entity located at the semi-periphery. Since the centre cannot exist without the periphery, these risks can turn into opportunities when power dynamics are overturned through translation and decentralisation."
