2026

IRIDESCENT

2026

International festival of contemporary dance and other reconfigurations of the sensible

Info

For the past five years, November has been transformed by Iridescent, and this fifth edition of the festival is more substantial and cohesive than ever. This year, at the initiative of Vava Ștefănescu, CNDB Manager, we have expanded the festival beyond the framework curated by the CNDB team, introducing a new section whose selection was made by artists Andreea Novac and Valentina de Piante. The aim is to reflect the diversity of practices, content, and formats currently shaping the contemporary dance and performance scene. This edition therefore brings together a substantial group of artists from Romania’s dance and performance scene, in dialogue with a series of works encountered on international stages.

Moreover, as we reach the end of the third edition of the Academy of Dance and Performance, we have selected six of the eleven works created by its graduates to be presented for the first time as part of Iridescent. We invite you to discover these works and follow the journeys of artists belonging to the new generations of women and men shaping the field: Iulia Andro, Iustin Danalache, Sofia Sitaru-Onofrei, Daiana Sargan, Cristina Tudor, and Teodora Tudose.

This edition explores the body as a site where social pressure intersects with labour, norms, and technology, while equally bringing to the fore questions of belonging, touch, and affect – and, above all, the possibility of deviating, of finding new ways to question and negotiate with the tumult of events and contradictions that surround and encompass us, with or without our consent. In this edition, then, the body is presented less as an object of representation and more as a site where we negotiate – and even refuse.

We open the festival with Chara Kotsali’s It’s the End of the Amusement Phase, in which progress emerges not as a solution, but as an already exhausted narrative, while bodies must continue to dance within this contradiction.
Following a new series of filmed interviews conducted in Ecuador and Moldova, Women at Work brings together performative interviews with women from Eastern Europe and Latin America, exploring the ways in which labour shapes bodies, rhythms, and everyday life. The exhibition at MNAC will be the most extensive presentation of the project to date and will be accompanied by lecture-performances by artists Simona Deaconescu and Flor Firvida Martín, as part of the Iridescent Festival.

In Claire Huber’s No.oN, the central questions are: what is it within us that refuses, and what needs to happen for someone to allow themselves to resist? In ALL’ARME, by Ginevra Panzetti and Enrico Ticconi, the individual body negotiates with the pressure of the group, with discipline, and with collective organisation.

The body is not separate from the place in which it exists, just as place is not separate from the economic structures that organise it. In Reading Gradience, Sanna J. Hirvone, Dana Andrei, and Nika Pećarina ask how place, language, and the body translate into one another. How does a territory become embodied? How do flows of capital settle into places? How do places shape bodies and condition behaviours and gestures?

Francesca Santamaria, a choreographer and performer from Italy making her Romanian stage debut, invites us in Good Vibes Only (beta test) to reflect on the body captured by digital flows and hyper-performativity. Does TikTok ring a bell?

The festival thus becomes a space for collective reflection on the individual body, which carries within it social and cultural history, yet does not appear to us merely as an object upon which pressures are exerted, but also as a site where those pressures can be negotiated and/or refused.

Perhaps, beyond all the differences between these works, something remains that is both simple and difficult to explain: the need to be seen, touched, listened to, understood — and, sometimes, the need to no longer have to be what is expected of us. So, in November, we invite you to be together and to see what might happen when we make room for what we still do not know how to name.

We invite you to join: Alexandra Bălășoiu, Adriana Gheorghe, Anca Stoica, Chara Kotsali, Claire Huber, Cristina Lilienfeld, Cristina Tudor, Cosmina Moroșan, Daiana Sargan, Dana Andrei, David Schwartz, Eduard Gabia, Eliza Trefaș, Enrico Ticconi, Ermira Goro, Flor Firvida Martín, Florin Flueraș, Francesca Santamaria, Ginevra Panzetti, Hunor Varga, Iulia Andro, Iustin Danalache, Ioana Marchidan, Ioana Vreme Moser, Kira Valentina, Mădălina Dan, Maria Beatrice Oneț, Maria Luiza Dimulescu, Mariana Gavriciuc, Mihai Mihalcea, Nika Pećarina, Sanna J. Hirvone, Sergiu Diță, Simina Oprescu, Simona Deaconescu, Sofia Sitaru-Onofrei, Teodora Tudose, Vava Ștefănescu.

Mihai Mihalcea, on behalf of the CNDB team

Period
November 1–30

Schedule

  • 1.11  IT’S THE END OF THE AMUSEMENT PHASE | Chara Kotsali [GR] | TNB, Painting Hall
  • 3.11  No.oN | Claire Huber [FR] | CNDB
  • 4.11  BORN TO TOUCH | Maria-Luiza Dimulescu, Maria-Beatrice Oneț & Mariana Gavriciuc [RO] | Teatre
  • 5-7.11 WOMEN AT WORK – Crossroads, Rhythms, and Continuities  | Simona Deconescu & Flor Firvida Martín [RO/MX] | MNAC
  • 6.11  TELOS | Ermira Goro [GR] | CNDB
  • 6-8.11 EX-PEAU-SITION | Mădălina Dan [RO] | Theaters
  • 7.11  …IN WONDERLAND | Vava Ștefănescu [RO] | “Grigore Antipa” Museum
  • 8.11  ALL’ARME | Ginevra Panzetti and Enrico Ticconi [IT/DE] | CNDB
  • 9.11 BELONGING BODIES | Teodora Tudose [RO] & TESERACT | Iustin Danalache [RO] | CNDB
  • 10.11 TELEMACHUS | Ioana Marchidan [RO] & GOOD VIBES ONLY (beta test) | Francesca Santamaria [IT] | CNDB
  • 11.11 DESYNCHRONOSIS A.K.A. JET LAG* | Cristina Tudor [RO] & THRESHOLD | Iulia Andro [RO] | CNDB
  • 12.11  WOW! YOU’RE A DANCER?! CAN YOU SHOW ME A SPLIT? | Sofia Sitaru-Onofrei [RO] & ICSPRES IORSELF | Daiana Sargan [RO] | CNDB
  • 13.11 SPAIME | David Schwartz [RO] | CNDB
  • 14.11 SOLARISATION  | Platforma 13 (Anca Stoica & Sergiu Diță) [RO] | Teatre
  • 15.11 UNAUTHORIZED MOVEMENTS | Mihai Mihalcea & Mara Bugarin  [RO] | CNDB
  • 16.11 READING GRADIENCE, rehearsal IV | Sanna J. Hirvone, Dana Andrei, Nika Pećarina [FIN/RO/HR] | Linotip
  • 19.11 GRACE+LOVE | Eliza Trefaș & Florin Flueraș [RO] | CNDB
  • 19-22.11 LEAKING INTO THE WORLD | Simona Deaconescu, Ioana Vreme Moser & Simina Oprescu [RO] | /SAC Berthlot
  • 20.11  ANOTHER RECOMPOSITION / LIZICA CODREANU | The Performative School Program [RO] | CNDB
  • 22.11  CODE-SWITCH  | Eduard Gabia  [RO] | CNDB
  • 24.11  METANOIA | Hunor Varga  [RO] | CNDB
  • 28.11  WE ARE ANATOMICAL THEATERS [RO] | CNDB
  • 30.11  MIND-MOVING  | Alexandra Bălășoiu, Cristina Lilienfeld  [RO] | CNDB

Partners

Institutional Partners
Ministry of Culture · Aerowaves · Moving Balkans · European Union · Onassis Stegi · Greek Embassy in Bucharest · Hellenic Union of Romania · Italian Cultural Institute in Bucharest · MNAC – National Museum of Contemporary Art of Romania · “I.L. Caragiale” National Theater · “Grigore Antipa” National Museum of Natural History

Cultural Partners
LINOTIP – Independent Choreographic Center · /SAC @ Berthelot & Malmaison · Tangaj Collective Association · Cărturești · Cinema Union · Terapie Pentru Mișcare · Petec Association · O2G Association · Theaters

Main Media Partner
Radio Guerrilla

Media Partners
Zile și Nopți · Matca Magazine · Scena Magazine · Arta Magazine · ELLE · TVR Cultural · Munteanu Recomandă · AGERPRES · VisitBucharest · Radio România Cultural · Haute Culture · Liternet · The Institute · Ceașca de Cultură · Daily Magazine · Modernism · Zeppelin · Iscoada · B-Critic · România Pozitivă