Short biography of Daniel P. Sandu, born in Bucharest on August 8, 1967.

My first contact with the dancing world was in 1971, when my parents took me to a dancing evening in Bucharest. As soon as I heard the music, I couldn’t sit still anymore. I followed the rhythm of music and could not stop... After this evening, my parents decided to bring me to a child dancing group. When I was six, after I took a test lesson, I became a member of the child dancing group Romanasul. I have been proud for days and now I still am. Romanasul then had a perfect location, the former royal palace in Bucharest, nowadays the presidential palace.

Because I could learn complicated dances easily and rapidly, in 1978 I was chosen to go along with the adult’s delegation to a world festival in Cuba, being the only child in all delegations!

When I was fourteen, my dream was to become a professional dancer abroad and then a dance teacher. In 1985, after a long audition I have been admitted as a trainee to the most well-known dance company in Romania, Rapsodia Romana in Bucharest. My parents knew of nothing. They thought that after graduating from the lyceum I would take an admission exam at the technical university. That I did, hoping to perform badly… which I did, but almost not bad enough!

After seven beautiful but also difficult years I thought it was about time to find a more healthy and favorable social climate. In May 1992 I auditioned for Het Internationaal Danstheater (The International Dance theatre) from Amsterdam. The result was: would you like to come to Amsterdam for a test period? Thus wrap up and clear off!

It was time for the second part of my dream to come true.

1992- 2000, for nine particular and nice years I danced with Het Internationaal Danstheater. There I had the change to learn many dancing styles: from Indian Khatak to Armenian dances, from tap dancing to drum dancing, from Argentinian Baleadores to Balkan gipsy dance, etc.

I have rapidly learned and mastered all those styles. All because of the quality and the finesse of the Romanian folk dance which is my basis. The Romanian folk dance is varied, technically demanding, very rhythmic and not at the least, beautiful. For me the Romanian folk dance is a good learning school, because it holds a lot of the aspects of other styles. I think that he who masters the techniques of the Romanian folk dancing, he who understands well the gypsy style, can be a complete dancer.

In 2003, I graduated at The Rotterdam’s Dance Academy as bachelor of dance in education with tap dance as specialization. Also the last part of my dream is going to come true.