Anca Giurchescu née Ciortea (19 December 1930 – 4 April 2015) was a Romanian researcher of folk dance, and an ethnochoreologist, one of the founders of the discipline.

She led numerous international research trips to study rituals and dance traditions among various ethnic minorities with roots in Romania and the surrounding countries.

[2] Her mother was the granddaughter of Nicolae Mircea, who co-founded Caru' cu Bere in 1899,[3] when he and his brothers Ignat and Víctor expanded their 20-year-old brewery business to include a restaurant.

She also conducted research into how traditions were used by officials as propaganda to develop and justify their power, and how they formed the identity of minority groups, such as the Romani people.

[1][8] In 1962, Giurchescu joined the International Council for Traditional Music where she was a member of the working group that defined the methodology for ethnochoreology and founded it as a scientific field.

[8] In 1993, Giurchescu led an international, interdisciplinary team to Optași-Măgura and Osica de Sus in Olt County to study the ritual aspects of căluș,[7][15] a traditional Romanian healing and fertility rite.

[16] She led a second international group to study local dance and music traditions in villages in the communes of Ceanu Mare and Frata part of the Transylvanian region of Romania.

In 2009, Giurchescu founded "Etnocor", a center located in Cluj-Napoca to facilitate studies in ethnochoreology, by creating an archive of reference works.

[8] Her last field study was undertaken with Liz Mellish and a team of international researchers to collect information in the village of Svinița on the ritual dance joc de pomană, which pays homage to the dead one year after their death.

[8][18] She continued to write about the methodology and theory of conducting field research[7] and her final project was in conjunction with Margaret H. Beissinger and Speranța Rădulescu.

Manele in Romania: Cultural Expression and Social Meaning in Balkan Popular Music, was posthumously published and dedicated to Giurchescu.

[7] In May, the Cluj-Napoca branch of the Romanian Academy hosted a session of talks, dedicated to her memory, during the conference Confesiune, Societate, Identitate (Confession, Society, Identity) held at Babeș-Bolyai University.