11 fresh works – Part I
- Dance & performance
- Academy of Dance and Performance Laboratories
- Free entry
cca. 130 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
Desynchronosis A.K.A. Jet Lag*
Concept, choreography, performance: Cristina Tudor
When you cross multiple time zones in a short period of time, your body falls behind.
When you’re born, your family’s stories fall behind.
When someone new steps into your life, you look back almost compulsively.
How do you recover? How do you bring your feelings and your body back to the present when the time of emotion and physical time are not one and the same?
Through a blend of letters and dance, Desynchronosis invites you to explore your need for synchrony with your own experiences and ideas.
*Desynchronosis, colloquially known as “jet lag,” is a temporary physiological condition that occurs when a person’s circadian rhythm is out of sync with the time zone they are in, and is a typical result of travel in which the individual rapidly crosses multiple time zones. Symptoms can vary depending on the number of time zones crossed, the duration of the trip, and the time of day the travel took place, as well as individual differences. Sleep is disrupted, either by insomnia (when traveling east), waking up very early in the morning (when traveling west), or frequent awakenings during the same sleep cycle (in both situations). General effects include: reduced performance in mental tasks and concentration, dizziness, nausea, confusion, anxiety, increased fatigue, headaches, irritability, and decreased appetite.
O crevasă inundată
Concept and Choreography: Ilinca Budeanu
Performance: Ilinca Budeanu and Iulia Andro
What does a place look like that allows you to live (even for a few seconds) outside of Time?
Who or what accompanies you on the journey to this place?
Through “O crevasă inundată” we seek to interrupt the daily rhythm of the body and the mind, in favor of a state of suspension in which we can rediscover a natural flow. Emotional and sensory memories are brought into the space through bodies that constantly seek to adapt to change and loss.
TESERACT
Concept, choreography, sound design, and performance: Iustin Danalache
Texts: Iustin Danalache, with excerpts from Mircea Cărtărescu
An autofictional performance that explores how our relationship with our parents leaves emotional and psychological imprints that continue to shape our identity. Drawing from a personal archive of memories, experiences, and biographical fragments, the work constructs five incarnations of the same “son,” each embodying a distinct way of relating to vulnerability, guilt, rebellion, exhaustion, affection, or reconciliation.
Combining text, movement, music, and performance, the show transforms memory into a meeting place between the past and the present, where intimate experiences are reconfigured through the body. Inspired by Kafka’s narrative structure, with texts by Iustin Danalache and reinterpretations of texts by Mircea Cărtărescu, but rooted in a deeply personal approach, the work offers a reflection on how identity is constructed from the traces left by family, seeking not to provide answers, but to make visible the processes through which these traces continue to exist within us.
Belonging Bodies
Concept, choreography, text, performance: Teodora Tudose
Sources of inspiration: Anne Carson, Lecture on the History of Skywriting; Hessel Moeselaar, Over Time
Special thanks to: Marius Costache
Belonging Bodies explores, through text and movement, the sense of belonging to an unknown space and the way in which the body can recognize a place before the mind understands it. Starting from the experience of an inexplicable sense of familiarity with a place visited for the first time, the work investigates the questions: How can an unknown space feel more like home than one’s own home? and How does the sensation of “home” manifest in the body?
The piece explores the relationship between belonging to a space and belonging to one’s own body, creating a dialogue between memory, perception, and presence. By combining text and movement, the work invites reflection on the boundary between the familiar and the unknown and on how the body can discover a new sense of “home.”
Treshold
Concept and choreography: Iulia Andro
Performance: Iulia Andro, Ilinca Budeanu, Iustin Danalache
Drawing on the image of the central nervous system as a network distributed throughout the body, this work explores the relationship between conscious attention, sensory perception, and movement. Three performers are exposed to the same stimuli in order to observe how each body processes information and generates responses in real time.
The piece investigates the possibility of a shared space of resonance emerging between bodies and raises questions such as: Can the same stimuli produce similar impulses in different bodies? How can an essentially invisible process become visible? Without seeking definitive conclusions, the work proposes a framework for observing the mechanisms through which the body perceives, integrates, and transforms experience into movement, inviting the audience to participate in the beginning of a research project dedicated to the relationship between the nervous system, perception, and presence.
Biographies
Cristina Tudor is an actress, playwright, and performer. She has collaborated on productions at Shakespeare’s Globe and The Arcola in London, KIA Productions and Ensemble Theatre in Vancouver, and has worked with the companies Beznă Theatre, Delazero, the Hearth Association, Cultură’n Șură, Adepth Infusion, Cuibul Artiștilor, and the film production company GoldenBoi Screendance.
She is the founder of the Cătun Association, which invites its audience into a space of introspection, empathy, and connection. In recent years, she has focused on creations and collaborations aimed at young people and families in small and medium-sized communities across the country, as well as in the diaspora. She believes that the performing arts are a space where people are welcome to share experiences, find common ground even among the deepest oppositions, celebrate, and find inspiration.
Ilinca Budeanu came to Bucharest from Brașov to study philosophy, and in her quest to continue dancing, she discovered contemporary dance. Since 2023, she has been a student at UNATC “I.L. Caragiale” in Bucharest, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in choreography, and is engaged in a continuous process of personal and artistic exploration in connection with the visual arts, music, and literature. Her participation in the Dance and Performance Academy’s workshops marked the first step in this journey.
Iustin Danalache is an actor and performer, a graduate of the “I.L. Caragiale” National University of Theater and Cinematography (UNATC) in Bucharest. He has appeared in numerous theater and dance productions staged by theaters in Bucharest and presented both locally and on tour in Romania and abroad.
He began dancing at age 6 (competitive dance) and continued in high school with street dance classes, through which he became interested in exploring the physical qualities of movement. Passionate about music, he also began beatboxing as a teenager, a hobby that sparked his curiosity about the qualities of sound.
Teodora Tudose is a choreographer and performer, having earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Choreographic Art from the “I. L. Caragiale” National University of Theater and Cinematography (U.N.A.T.C.) in Bucharest.
Among the pieces she has created and performed are: Best regards, wishing you well, Love Me for Five Minutes, We Need to Talk, and Influences; she has also collaborated with various associations, theaters, and institutions both nationally and internationally.
She is also drawn to dramatic and poetic writing, seeking to organically combine movement and the spoken word in her creations.
In 2024, she founded Imprevizibil, the artistic identity under which she carries out her choreographic work.
Iulia Andro is a freelance artist, performer, and aspiring choreographer. She began her artistic journey through music, studying the violin and piano for several years. She is currently studying choreography at UNATC “I.L. Caragiale” in Bucharest. She has participated in performances such as AGE and Las Morochas at the TicTac Art Centre (Belgium), as well as at the Berlin Performing Arts Festival as part of the Butoh Caravan. Since 2023, she has been a member of the contemporary dance company Contemporary Creative Dreamers and a performer in contemporary dance productions: Nihil Sine Deo—choreographed by Dragomir Daniel; Wet Dreams “Are Made of This”—choreographed by Anastasia Preotu; and Techniques for Strangling a Stray Dog—choreographed by Vlad Furtună.
Drawn to the space between technique and freedom, between rigor and spontaneity, she sees dance as a form of knowledge and sharing—a way for the body to communicate and achieve what words cannot.
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