Scenica Club in Bistrita has become, in recent years, one of the most frequented non-formal education places locally, where a blue-haired teacher opens the door to the arts for children through painting and theater classes.

The non-conformist, raised in a traditional teaching family, is Dora Baba and her declared mission is to help children discover the best in themselves through art - a passion she has developed alongside her teaching career.

Originally from the village of Poiana Ilvei, Dora had her own father as a teacher, naturally followed the pedagogical high school, and at the age of 19 she was teaching at a school in Bistrita - a first dream come true.

'I was born in a house of teachers. In our house, out of six people, five of us were teachers, so it's simple somehow, it's in the blood and I keep having fun when I tell it. I was in eighth grade, at lunch, and at one point my father, who was also my teacher, asked me: 'Where do you want to go? Because I enrolled you at the pedagocical high school!' Just like that! I finished the pedagogical high school in Nasaud, I liked it very much, I was very good, I learned very well, I was top of my class in 1994. After graduating high school, I became a teacher in Bistrita. That was my dream. The big dream, when you grow up in a village, is the county seat,' Dora Baba told us.

She says she was fascinated by the school environment, would have slept there if the management had let her, and adored her first generation of students, after which she suffered a whole summer when they moved on to secondary school.

But then came a blow from the education system: by the year 2000, there was a reduction in teaching posts and it was felt that she had to go, she was the youngest. She felt frustrated and unfair, and then she decided to go to university to study Sociology - a field she chose impulsively, but which turned out to suit her well.

After college, she pursued a master's degree in international project management, and then returned to education, as a teacher at the Music High School in Bistrita, where she taught philosophy and economics. Later she became a mother and took a break to raise her daughter.

Once back from maternity leave, she started working on European projects, life took her to Bucharest, but something told her that this was not her path, she was waiting for a sign. The sign came in the form of a phone call from her brother, who had set up Scenica in Bistrita as a dance club and needed help. So, 13 years ago, she came back to Bistrita and soon became the soul of Scenica, changed it, introduced piano, guitar, painting, ballet classes.

At Scenica she collaborated for a while with a professional ballerina, UNATC graduate Daniela Hasiade, with whom she created shows combining theater and contemporary dance, and with the visual artist Paul Muresan, who gave her the confidence that she could also teach painting classes. They became lifelong friends and gave her the impetus to grow the club even further.

Currently, she runs theater and painting groups by age groups, from six-year-old children to teenagers to adults who are looking for such activities to escape from the daily routine. Dora Baba teaches painting - and claims that she can teach anyone to paint, with a little perseverance - writes and directs plays, creates costumes for little actors, becomes the confidante of teenage girls who want very much at this age to be listened to. And all this, during the afternoons, because she dedicates her mornings to teaching again: she is a teacher at a rural school, in the fourth grade, commutes daily and amazes the locals with her blue dyed hair.

'Now, to arrive in a village, with a blue hair, somehow it's strange, I mean, people still look at me strangely. But all my life I've been the kind of person who hasn't been extremely affected by public opinion and it's a boldness of mine that is not ostentatious, but encouraging for the children,' Dora Baba confesses.

Her most recent non-formal education project was an experimental theater performance with a group of six to seven-year-olds, for which she wrote a play, 'The Garden Gnomes'.

She is preparing another theater show with a group of teenagers, based on the novel 'Animal Farm' by George Orwell, she says it fits the times we live in. And in summer, she organizes camps in the mountains, where she connects with nature young people who are otherwise inseparable from their phone screens.

Her most cherished project at Scenica is the Christmas ornament painting workshop, which she has been organizing every December for ten years. It has attracted hundreds of people and she is fascinated by the feeling of 'togetherness' that the participants convey, most of them parents who come with their children, but also neighbors who have developed friendships over the years.

And the Scenica story, marked by Dora Baba, is set to continue. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Tina Dumitrescu; EN - writing by: Simona Iacob)