Born to Touch
- Public Presentation
- Workshop
- Performative Installation
- Recommended age: 10 to 70 years old
- Free admission with registration
4 hr
Info
Born to Touch is a performative research and collective creation laboratory developed by choreographers Maria-Luiza Dimulescu, Maria Beatrice Oneț, and Mariana Gavriciuc as part of an artistic residency held in July 2026 at Vitlycke Centre for Performing Arts, through the Culture Moves Europe programme.
On November 4, at 8:00 PM, the presentation of the installation created together with the workshop participants will take place.
Conceived as a participatory learning experience through artistic practice, the laboratory invites participants to explore the body as a space of memory, relationship, and transformation, investigating how personal experiences and encounters with others shape individual and collective identity.
The laboratory originates in two performative installations developed by the artists — BORN(E) and on the poetics of touch – which serve as conceptual and methodological reference points throughout the process. Although they emerge from different research directions, both works place the body at the centre of artistic inquiry: as a living archive of accumulated experiences and as a territory of relationship, communication, and vulnerability.
Inspired by the research developed through the installation BORN(E), the laboratory explores the body as an archive of memory and the passage of time. Participants are invited to investigate how personal experiences become inscribed in the body and influence self-perception, relationships with others, and our ways of relating to change. At the same time, drawing from the practices developed in on the poetics of touch, the laboratory examines touch as a fundamental form of communication and knowledge, exploring how contact, proximity, and the negotiation of boundaries contribute to the formation of human relationships.
The proposed methodology combines movement practices, improvisation, creative writing, interviews, work with performative instructions (scores), collective reflection, and video documentation. These tools are used as ways of accessing embodied memory and transforming personal experiences into artistic material. The process emphasises listening, empathy, collaboration, and co-creation, encouraging participants to develop forms of expression rooted in their own stories, sensations, and encounters.
The laboratory is open to people interested in performative and interdisciplinary practices, regardless of their level of artistic experience. Participation from people of different generations and backgrounds is encouraged, with intergenerational dialogue forming one of the project’s essential dimensions. Rather than focusing exclusively on an end result, Born to Touch proposes a space for research and experimentation in which the artistic process becomes a tool for self-discovery and community building.
Facilitated by the three artists, the laboratory aims to create a safe and collaborative space in which vulnerability is understood as a creative resource, and the body becomes a medium through which meaning, connection, and alternative forms of knowledge can emerge.
The process will end with a public presentation in the form of a multidisciplinary performative installation created together with the participants (max. 25 minutes). Conceived as an open-ended performative experience, the presentation will reflect the collective journey undertaken throughout the laboratory and offer the audience access to the world of experiences, questions, and relationships generated during the process.
Workshop registration link HERE.
Registration
For the public presentation on November 4, admission is free upon completing the form available HERE.
Participation in the workshop (November 1–4) is free upon registration using the form available HERE, limited to a maximum of 10 participants.
Biographies
Maria-Luiza Dimulescu is a choreographer and performer based in Bucharest. She holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Choreography from the National University of Theater and Film Arts and was honored by the National Dance Center in Bucharest in 2023 for her contribution to contemporary dance. Since 2025, she has been co-director of the CONNECT Contemporary Dance Festival.
Her artistic practice explores feminist and sociocultural themes through performative and interdisciplinary approaches. She co-created the performance Maybe by 2301 We Won’t Need Another Feminist Show (together with Camelia Neagoe) and, alongside Beatrice Tudor, The Last Drop and BORN(E). She has also directed several award-winning dance films, including Breath, Call of Pink, Dépaysement, and Disconnected, in collaboration with Cătălin Rugină (director of photography).
Mariana Gavriciuc is a choreographer and performer. Her artistic practice focuses on personal narratives, which she explores through movement, video, and text. She often draws on intimate experiences or autobiographical fragments, which she recontextualizes within performative settings.
In 2020, she was honored by the CNDB for her contribution to contemporary dance, and in 2025, she was nominated for a UNITER Award for Best Choreography/Stage Movement for the performance Emaus.
She is a co-founder of the Delazero Association, a member of the TANGENt creative group, part of the Late Field Collective, and a co-founder of the dance film production company GoldenBoi Screendance.
Maria Beatrice Oneț graduated from UNATC Bucharest and works primarily in Romania’s independent cultural sector. She is a performer, choreographer, cultural manager, and contemporary dance teacher, as well as a member of the cultural associations Unfold Motion (Timișoara) and Delazero (Bucharest). Since 2017, she has been part of the creative collective Goldenboi.Screendance, producing award-winning dance films that have been presented both nationally and internationally.
She is the creator of performances such as r.e.g.e.n.e.r.a.t.i.o.n., My Invisible Noisy Inside, A Man to Be Loved, Ibuse, A Body to Read | In a Dream, and Prince Charming’s Brides & The Story of an Illusion. She is also the co-creator of the performative installation BORN(E), the video performance Impressionable Body, and the performances Vulnus – The Quality of Being Easily Hurt and Connecting Pleasures.
Her work has been supported by residencies and grants such as Energy! Creative Grants, At Home in Hundorf, and Foreign Bodies (Reykjavik). In 2022, she received the Award for Contribution to Contemporary Dance from the National Dance Center in Bucharest, and in 2023, her project DansNomad was nominated for the Radio România Cultural Awards.
Iridescent 2026 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
