Tuesday, April 13, 2021, 18:00 EET (GMT +02:00)
Latvia
Director: Roberts Dauburs / Latvia
Actor: Alex Calangiu
Episode: Day 6. Story 1
about the Director
Roberts Dauburs
It all started one beautiful evening in Switzerland. In the mountains (approximately 2000 metres over the sea level), near the town of Lugano. The sky was full of stars and Roberts was sitting in front of the mountain house, drinking cheap beer and fantasising about what he could do about his future. He had already finished youth basketball school of Riga “Jugla”, art school in Kekava, was going to Erasmus workshops (also one in Romania), but nothing felt correct. His choices were good, but nothing that he was losing his sleep over. After watching the stars fall (for the first time in his life), probably one of them fell to his mind or he finally figured everything out! He would become a Theatre or Cinema director! Ever since then, nothing has changed.
After graduating high school he was lucky, because that year in Latvian Academy of Culture they were taking on new course of theatre directors. Not really knowing anything except that he will become a theatre director, he applied and after the examinations he was one of eleven lucky people that got in!
There he started his studies under the great guidance of one of the greatest Latvian theatre directors and teachers, Māra Ķimele, and one of the best directors right now, Elmārs Seņkovs. Thanks to his full experience, he quickly realised that everything goes down to how much you work. So he was studying hard and every single time when he had free time, which rarely ever happened, he was looking for opportunities to learn more. So all of the summers he has spent as assistant to directors in Valmiera Theatre Festivall. He was lucky to be assistant to Viesturs Meikšāns in contemporary opera UnknownUnknown, Toms Treinis in performance for children The yard comes to life, Valters Sīlis documental performance about Latvian National Football team going to European Championship first and hopefully not the last time in its history Victory is just a moment.
Also in the Academy he has made works with literature geniuses like Alfred Jarry, William Shakespeare, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Rūdolfs Blaumanis and Rainis.
In 2 months time, he will be graduating from the Academy, and he will make his first full length performance. So, this is just the beginning…
about the actor
Alex Calangiu
One of the Craiova National Theatre’s most versatile performers, Alex Calangiu, graduated from the University of Craiova, Theatre Department, class Prof. dr. Alexandru Boureanu.
Since 2015, he has been an actor at the Marin Sorescu National Theatre, and, only during the current season he is playing in 13 of the theatre’s performances, in which he is testing several artistic languages, exploring extremely diverse creative areas, and impersonating characters of surprising identities and stories.
Last year he worked for two premieres: The Snake’s Outfit by Marius Aldea, directed by Andrea Gavriliu and Heart and Other Meat Products by Dan Coman, directed by Radu Afrim, and he has started this year with a role of an excellently comic potential, in TOC TOC by Laurent Baffie, directed by Alexandru Boureanu and Raluca Păun. His character suffers from a mania for solving arithmetics problems.
His collaboration with Radu Afrim is extremely prolific: Alex is playing in The Chocolate House by David Drábek – where he expresses the absurd and the emotions of an unsuccessful gigolo (Ion/Giovanni) – and in If We Talked Out Loud by Adnan Lugonić – where he is one of the neighbourhood kids. Both the performances have been staged by Radu Afrim at the National Theatre of Craiova.
In 2009, Alex Calangiu was involved in a project in collaboration with the Drăgulescu Theatre Association, Craiova and the Maximum Security Prison, Craiova. Eight convicts told their stories in a theatrical context, as part of the social reintegration program, coordinated by Alex as a stage director.
Other performance in which he can be seen on the Craiova stage during the current season are: Playground text and direction Raul Coldea; Good News. Final by Davide Carnevali, directed by Alexandru Dabija; Bang by Marius von Mayenburg, directed by Theodor Cristian Popescu; White Room by Alexandra Badea, directed by Florin Caracala; The Smell of the Kill by Michele Lowe, directed by Alexandru Boureanu; Retroelectro text and direction Bogdan Georgescu; Ajax. An Essay on Dementia after Sophocles, directed by Mihai Măniuțiu; The Jays by Alexandru Kiriţescu, directed by Alexandru Boureanu.
