11 fresh works – Part III

  • Dance & performance
  • Academy of Dance and Performance Laboratories
  • Free entry

cca. 135 min

Info

The Academy of Dance and Performance Laboratories, an intensive training program initiated by the National Center for Dance in Bucharest (CNDB), concludes with public presentations of the 11 performance and choreographic works created by this year’s participants on August 7, 21, and 22. These three days of non-stop performances mark the end of a process of research, experimentation, and creation that has unfolded over the course of an academic year and offer the public the opportunity to discover emerging artistic voices that have taken shape within the program.

SCHEDULE

Every house has a door 

Concept, choreography: Bianca Ardeleanu
Performance: Bianca Ardeleanu and Sofia Sitaru-Onofrei

Starting from a return to childhood from an adult’s perspective, the piece explores the traces that early experiences leave on the body, in memory, and in the way we relate to the world. Without seeking definitive answers, the performance brings to the forefront questions about the words that have shaped us, the fears we carry, and the coping mechanisms we develop to protect ourselves.

Play becomes the primary tool for exploration and a space for negotiation between the past and the present. Familiar rules are transformed, and play takes on new meanings, revealing memories, vulnerabilities, and repetitive patterns. Combining text, dialogue, and movement, the piece proposes an open performative process in which risk, improvisation, and real-time presence become ways to explore the relationship between trauma, memory, and the possibility of rediscovering play as a space of freedom.

What if today…? 

Concept, choreography, and performance: Ada Anghel

Starting from the question of how much control we actually have over our own lives, this solo explores the tension between personal needs and external pressures. In an attempt to meet others’ expectations and find its own place, the body oscillates between alertness, confusion, and the need for stillness, in an ever-fragile balance.

Through movement, the piece follows a body on a continuous quest: moments of calm and reconnection with the self are constantly interrupted by impulses that bring it back to a state of agitation and uncertainty. The performance invites the audience to reflect on their own relationship with control, responsibility, and the pressures of daily life, transforming the individual experience into a shared question about how we inhabit our own lives.

Wow! You’re a dancer?! Can you show me a split? 

Concept, choreography, and performance: Sofia Sitaru-Onofrei

Drawing on the artist’s own journey in dance, this solo performance explores the body as a living archive, in which the experiences, emotions, and transformations accumulated over the years remain inscribed. The work constructs a personal map of a dancer’s evolution, revisiting the moments that have shaped both the body and the performative identity.

Combining direct personal narrative with movement, the piece brings to the forefront realities often invisible in dancers’ lives: injuries, the pressure of auditions, the constant adaptation to industry expectations, the transition from classical ballet to contemporary dance, and the need for rest and recovery. At the same time, the work revisits the beginnings of dance, returning to the child who discovered the joy of movement before it became a profession.

Although it draws on an autobiographical experience, the work-in-progress performance offers a reflection on the body’s memory and on how each dancer’s journey is built from visible and invisible traces, preserved in movement.

Biographies

Bianca Ardeleanu is a dancer, performer, and choreographer. She has held a bachelor’s degree in Choreography (UNATC “I.L. Caragiale,” Bucharest) since 2021 and is a member of the Contemporary Creative Dreamers contemporary dance company. Over the past three years, she has trained with C-Mestre Antonio Minhoca in the acrobatic aspects of capoeira; she is currently focused primarily on combining acrobatics with contemporary dance, as well as developing a teaching technique and structure for acrobatics tailored to contemporary dancers.

Ada Anghel is a performer and choreographer. Her dance practice began more than 12 years ago with hip-hop and breakdancing, and in recent years she has “landed” in the world of contemporary dance. In 2024, she graduated from UNATC “I.L. Caragiale” in Bucharest with a Bachelor’s degree in Performing Arts—Choreography, and since then her explorations have continued in contemporary dance as well as in physical and musical theater.
She has participated in dance workshops led by Valentina de Piante, Ioana Marchidan, Lavinia Urcan, Fabian Thome, Edivaldo Ernesto, Rob Hyden, Lali Ayguade, Vittoria De Ferrari Sapetto, and others, and has collaborated as a performer in productions created by her peers, Anastasia Preotu and Vlad Furtună.

Sofia Sitaru-Onofrei is a performer and choreographer. She graduated from the “Floria Capsali” High School of Choreography in Bucharest and was a principal dancer at the Comic Opera for Children, after which she danced with the ballet company of the National Opera. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in contemporary dance—Performing Arts—Choreography from UNATC “I.L. Caragiale” in Bucharest, and spent her first year of graduate school in Jerusalem, where she went on to dance with the Jerusalem Dance Company and discovered the Gaga movement, a practice that completely transformed her perception of the body and dance. Her experience working with choreographers such as Noa Zuk, Shahar Binyamini, and Pablo Girolami taught her that dance is not just technique, but a way of living in the present with all its intensity—a space where curiosity and freedom set the tone.
She currently collaborates as a performer with other artists and independent organizations (Platforma 13, Delazero, Linotip, and the Godot Theater), as well as with the National Dance Center in Bucharest. She leads contemporary dance workshops for adults and teenagers and ballet classes for children.

Produced by
The National Centre for Dance Bucharest

A cultural program co-funded by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. The program does not necessarily reflect the position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. The AFCN is not responsible for the content of the project or for how the program’s results may be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the grant recipient.

With the support of: Austrian Cultural Forum Bucharest, Goethe-Institut Romania, French Institute in Romania, Polish Institute Bucharest