Margareta Niculescu facts for kids
Margareta Niculescu (born January 4, 1926 – died August 19, 2018) was a famous Romanian artist. She was a talented puppeteer, director, and teacher. Margareta Niculescu helped bring new life to the art of puppetry around the world, starting in the 1950s. She led the well-known Tandarica Theatre of Bucharest. From 2000 to 2004, she was the president of UNIMA, the International Puppetry Association. She also helped start the National School of Puppetry Arts in Charleville-Mézières, France. In 1978, she won the important Erasmus Prize for her work.
Contents
Early Life and Career
Margareta Niculescu was born in Iaşi, Romania. She found a puppet group that treated puppetry as a serious art form. At that time, puppet theater in Romania was not very organized. Small groups of artists often used characters from folk stories.
Around this time, the Romanian Communist Party came to power. They created new cultural groups that the government controlled. The Romanian Ministry of Culture asked Niculescu to help make puppetry a national theater art. She studied at the Institute of Theatre and Film Arts.
Leading the Tandarica Theatre
At just 23 years old, Margareta Niculescu became the director of the Tandarica Theater in Bucharest. She held this job for a long time, from 1949 to 1986. Under her leadership, the Tandarica Theater became very famous. In 1978, the theater received the Erasmus Prize. It was honored for being a "colourful and imaginative theatre" that greatly influenced puppetry after World War II.
International Influence
After 37 years at the Tandarica Theater, Niculescu started new projects. In 1985–1986, she helped launch the International Institute of Puppetry in Ardennes, France. Three years later, she co-founded the National School of Puppetry in Charleville-Mézières. She then served as the director of this school from 1987 to 1998.
Margareta Niculescu passed away on August 19, 2018, in Charleville-Mézières, France. She was 92 years old. Her work greatly changed the world of puppetry.
Published Works
Margareta Niculescu also wrote several books about puppetry. These books shared her knowledge and ideas with others around the world.
- Světové loutkářství : současné loutkové divadlo slovem i obrazem, 1966, in Czech.
- The puppet theatre of the modern world; an international presentation in word and picture, UNIMA, 1967, English and German.
- Puppentheater der Welt; zeitgenössisches Puppenspiel in Wort und Bild, UNIMA, 22 reprints 1965 – 1968 in Germany.
- Marionnettes du monde entier : théâtres de marionnettes contemporains, UNIMA, 1967, French.
- L'avant-garde et la marionnette, 1988, French.
- Die Avantgarde und das Figurentheater, 1993, in German.
- Marionnettes en territoire brésilien, Festival mondial des théâtres de marionnettes, 1994, in French.
- Passeurs et complices (Passing it on), Institut international de la marionnette, in French and English, 2009.
