Pronounced (Kuh-loo-sha-ri’). These people are nothing more or less than Romanian folk dancers. While in modern day their dance is done for public performances, there once was, and still is in some groups a secret fraternal teaching. These teachings are passed initiate to initiate and not shared outside of the practices of members. The group was exclusively male. This secrecy was met with superstition and many people wondered at what they taught each other.
The folk dance of the Calusari (the Calus) often involve feats of acrobatics, which until television seemed near impossible. It was common to suspect them for sharing secret knowledge of fairies which gave them their power over the elements to achieve such acrobatics.
In Romania it was once said that if you had a loved one cursed by fae you could bring them to the Calusari who would be able to heal them.
The dance often features a leader, a fool and other dancers. The leader often begins by leading the group in a clockwise motion around the room, stage, green or town square. The mode of dress and the form of the dance is similar to that of English Morris dancing.
I have noticed a few pagans get involved in Morris dancing as if it were to offer some spiritual teaching … I assure you the spiritual teaching is long gone and the majority of people involve do not care for any spiritual teachings as it gets in the way of doing the dancing which takes quite a lot of time. When I have run into spiritual people who practised Morris dancing I found them no more knowledgeable than someone who did not practise and therefore reasonably concluded that there is no teaching here for me. Calusari are rare where I live in England and those that practice do not bother with initiation ceremonies or profess any fairy or spiritual knowledge, some say the initiations still exist in Romania, but claim they were taught nothing in Romanian dance groups that they weren’t taught in groups which don’t require initiations. I conclude that today the initiation is more a right of passage than an impart of spiritual knowledge.
An awareness was raised of Calusari in western culture with their appearance in an episode of the X-files. Unforuntately, the TV show misrepresented them making them look like aged mystic occult priests in Orthodox Church robes and did not present the dance making them look more like male witches than Morris Dancers. The show called them men that “oversee the ceremonies”. This is nothing to revive interest in the dance.