Authenticity of the Masked Body—the Bear Dance in Present Day Digital Performance

This article examines the transformation of authenticity seen within the contemporary performance of the Romanian Bear Dance by focusing on the group Ursul lui Gavrilă din Asău, selected because of the unique features it has added to the performance. Exploring a corpus of 100 Facebook posts collected between 2023 and 2026, the approach combines digital ethnography with discourse analysis to explore how authenticity is constructed in mediated contexts. The analysis reveals the displacement of authenticity from material practice to discursive and relational processes. While the masked body remains visually central, it no longer functions as the primary source of authenticity. Instead, authenticity emerges through an intricate combination of audience engagement, narrative continuity, and affective investment. Comments, reactions, and patterns of circulation demonstrate that authenticity is co-produced through interaction and recognition rather than embedded in the inherited ritual form. By highlighting the role of digital mediation, the article argues that authenticity operates as a dynamic and distributed effect, shaped by visibility, participation, and the ongoing negotiation of meaning across diverse audiences whatever the degree of conformity or lack of to the ethnographically described form of the performance.