In the context of celebrating 20 years of existence, The National Center for Dance Bucharest (CNDB) is extending the International Dance Day for the entire month of April. Thus, the spectators will have the opportunity to watch international dance performances presented for the first time in Romania, national choreographic productions, but also to participate in discussions with the artists.
Included in the month’s calendar are three performances from Hungary, the Netherlands and Belgium, selected from the international Twenty23/24 program, organized by the European network Aerowaves:
FATIGUE [Hungary] – April 17, 7:30 p.m
Created and performed by Viktor Szeri
Mood swings, slowed reflexes, dizziness: the various physical and psychological symptoms of burnout infiltrate unnoticed into everyday life. What can an artist do with this enervated state in a world where work makes existence tangible? In this climate, it can seem as if continuous production, the accumulation of projects, is the key to satisfaction, while all this points the way to burnout. In his solo, Viktor Szeri does not hide his apathy, but draws on his personal experiences and builds his choreography on fatigue, on wanting nothing. He explores the creative process, the limits and tolerance of his own body through the filter of burnout, while also experimenting with how the audience can relate to this sedated vision. Fatigue was awarded the Rudolf Lábán Prize 2023 awarded by the independent performing arts scene in Hungary and was selected as part of the Aerowaves ‘Twenty24 Artists’ network. “(…) Thus fatigue simultaneously has a painful truth and meaning, the true power of the piece is that it is able to turn this pain productive. The performance presents the drama of the human being set and forgotten in life clearly and poignantly (…)” – Ákos Török
MOVEMENTS OF SOUL [Netherlands] – April 24, 7:30 p.m
Concept, production, choreography and interpretation: YAV
In “MOVEMENTS OF SOUL,” YAV brings together the dynamic worlds of dance, music, and fashion to create a unique and immersive experience.YAV has deliberately chosen not to describe his piece to question our preconceived notions and conditioning, as we often find ourselves entangled in the confusion of distinguishing the message from the messenger. YAV encourages viewers to explore and interpret the performance in their own way to spark conversations about how we perceive and understand art.“MOVEMENTS OF SOUL” is an opportunity for a layered, individualised experience. It’s a reminder that art doesn’t always need words to convey meaning—sometimes, the most profound conversations arise from the unspoken, the unscripted, and the beautifully ambiguous.
DOUBLE BILL: 3/4 FACE TOUJOURS! [Belgium]
+ REVERSE DISCOURSE [Romania]
April 29, 7:30 p.m
Since on this date the International Dance Day is celebrated, initiated in 1982 by UNESCO, the spectators have the opportunity to see two performances from Romania and Belgium.
Toujours de 3/4 face!
Choreographer, composer and performer: Loraine Dambermont
According to Johnny Cadillac, a former Belgian karateka, « 3/4 face » is the ultimate defensive position: A posture so precise which inevitably betrays a will of perfectionism and a deep desire of control. Loraine Dambermont makes this principle her own and, through a live tutorial, reveals her best self-defence secret skills. Toujours de 3⁄4 face! is a 20 minute hyper energetic solo performed as a survival guide with hints of humour. Dambermont also tackles the complex Belgian identity through movements all directed towards the paroxysm of self-mockery. This performance challenges the physical and mental virtuosity of the performer by pushing the limits of a constrained body between a marathon of hyper fast movements, and the extreme precision of its own musicality.
Reverse Discourse
Concept and choreography: Ioana Marchidan
In “Reverse Discourse” I wanted to provoke emotion without mediating the gaze. To challenge the public to recall their own experiences or those transmitted and retransmitted, perpetually perpetuated by external factors, whether we are talking about people or the media. I used the body as a means of visual connection to an absurd dialogue. A bodily dialogue exposed in lines with distinct temporalities, which almost never intersect. An organic dialogue that exposes the dominator-submissive perspectives in multiple hypostases that outline the past and the present. A somatic dialogue that animates the traumas stored in our collective and individual memory. A visceral dialogue about the assumption of power and its exploitation in predominantly dictatorial, manipulative directions. (Ioana Marchidan)
“Reverse discourse” is what the title says. An inverted speech. Depersonalized. Offered naked. Fragile. Intimate. A performance about body politics in which Ioana Marchidan short-circuits the collective body memory, identifying and bringing to the surface deeply rooted gestures, in order to unarchive them and decompose them through a body slide towards an abstract choreography. This cataloging and re-editing of the memory of submission, of the suppression and repression of the meanings of gestures, integrates the public as a participant in the dialogue, as a submissive observer.
It’s interesting to follow in this micro performance the body movements before the gestures take shape. The inventory of gestures comes as an oscillation between submission and oppression until the body gives up on the difference between the two and gets caught up in the energy of change between them. The choice to construct discourse in this form, a naked back in a space that oscillates from dark abyss to video projections, implies vulnerability. And vulnerability implies an assumed fragility, which allows focusing on the essence of the message: the destructive force of abuse of power.
In addition to the international productions, the public is expected in April at the CNDB for other events. The month begins with (anti)aging, an archive performance, under permanent construction, created in 2011 and designed to have successive stages, lasting 30 years, until 2041. The show, in the choreography and interpretation of Mădălina Dan and Alexandra Mihaela Dancs, is scheduled for April 2. Choreomaniacs is a performative docu-fiction, chronologically following the events that marked the “dance epidemy” in the summer of 1518, in Strasbourg – a mass dystopian manifestation, which affected several hundred people. This can be seen at the CNDB on April 14.
“Casual Wednesday – ideas asserted performatively” returns to the National Center for Dance Bucharest (CNDB) in a special edition on Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 April. Perhaps the best-known project of the CNDB and the one that attracted a large audience during the years when the institution operated in the building of the National Theatre, “Casual Wednesday” is a format initiated and conceived by artists Eduard Gabia and Maria Baroncea, and presented in collaboration with Paul Dunca/Paula Dunker. “Casual Wednesday” involves direct experimentation with ideas using performativity, but without the prior elaboration and repetition of content as in a performance. At “Light Wednesdays”, participants come with their laboratory of intimate concerns and approaches which they expose to an audience curious to participate in the performative experimentation of free statements and questions, in a setting free from the expectations, constraints and stress of presenting a finished performance. Each of these exhibitions is a premiere in itself, in a concentrated active, vulnerable, open present. When the project was launched in 2008, Eduard Gabia declared: “A show that has no past, no future, only a present – a now. By disappearing as it appeared, the show only makes the affirmation of that moment. Affirming something every Wednesday, in time, the affirmations become of a week, of months, of a year – the year of light affirmations.” Casual Wednesdays – ideas asserted performatively is an open platform where anyone can test, on stage, the ideas they have, provided they sign up in advance. Anyone can participate, regardless of age, profession, education and training. The stage thus becomes a democratic space accessible to all, creating the conditions for encounters and dialogues without boundaries, across disciplines, backgrounds, experience.
The events take place at CNDB – Stere Popescu hall (Bulevardul Mărășești 80-82).More information about the April program can be found HERE.
In 2024, the CNDB celebrates its 20th anniversary, being the only national institution whose main mission is the development of choreographic culture in Romania and which operates as a producer and host of performances, while assuming equally important missions such as research, documentation and archiving, as well as the development of programs and projects for artistic education and professional training.
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