New year's ritual

In the photo series, "New year's ritual", Jan Janssen photographs the New Year's Eve tradition of the bear dance in the Romanian cities of Asau and Darmanesti. Every year, on December 30-31, many inhabitants of Romania come together to symbolically initiate the new year. The tradition surrounding the bear dance is rooted in the culture of the Geto-Dacians, the ancestors of present-day Romania who lived over a thousand years ago. To them, the bear was a sacred animal with healing powers, which is reflected in their many legends surrounding the bear. Even in the twenty-first century, most inhabitants own their own bearskin, in spite of them being costly possessions that are only used once a year. Despite the global Western commercialisation of the New Year celebration, the local communities of Romania prefer to celebrate this very ancient tradition in large numbers every year, by donning the skins of a thousand ancestors. It testifies to a community full of love, bound by tradition and the legacy of age-old legends.