Cântec pentru mama/ Song For My Mother

2015

VHS transferred to HDD; DVR; color, sound 

5 min. 31 sec., loop

 

The main part of the video is a cut from a children's entertaining program where, at the age of nine, I was performing a playback song in the memory of my mother, broadcasted on the Romanian commercial TV station CANAL 38, somewhere in 1996. The song was the idea of the Meloritm Group leader, Lăcrămioara Mitroaica, written in memory of my deceased mother. It was my first and last appearence as a leading vocal during my time as a member of the group. I felt really odd and unpleasant, I never liked to be in the spotlight.

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Interweaved are various nature recordings. All recordings are accompanied by original sound.

 

The last part of the video was recorded in 2007 with my grandmother, a very religious type of woman, laying on a hospital bed recalling a dream she had about my mother. I got to catch her on film during a visit after her eye surgery, where she had the feeling that her end was getting closer. She recovered well and lived for some more years.

 

The memories I have about Meloritm (children's choir and dance group in Bucharest) are strongly related to my mother. She subscribed me to The Children's National Palace - an Activity Center for children (dance, choir, ballet classes etc.) when I was three years old, from where she always expected the best from me. I remember one time when I succeeded to surprise her. We were filming for a TV show and on entering the stage, I realised that I was still chewing bubble gum. As I couldn’t throw it away anymore, I kept on chewing it. This way I caught the camera team’s attention and they did some nice close-ups. As for my mother’s reaction, this wasn’t too funny for her, on the contrary.

As she got sick, I asked for her permission to interrup the activity at Meloritm and she allowed me, saying it will be ‘till she would get well again.’ After her death, I never went back to "Meloritm".