SUMA, an Active Art project about community recovery and regeneration
- Dance & Performance
- Free admission, by reservation only
8 hr
20.09.2026
Sunday
14:00
Info
17 artists, five performances, an 8-hour durational performance, and three venues in Bucharest connected across the city: SUMA brings together contemporary dance, storytelling, and mindful touch in a project exploring how we can recover together after profound collective experiences.
Dance sets things in motion. Sometimes, more things than just the body.
In SUMA, movement becomes one of the ways through which we can work with what remains in the body after experiences that have left their mark on us, recover a part of ourselves, and seek, together, other ways to move forward.
The contemporary dance performance brings us together in the same space, in close proximity, and allows movement to do what it does best: to set sensations, emotions, memories, and relationships in motion.
On September 19 & 20, we’ll be getting things moving at the SUMA durational performance at CNDB:
Through dance, stories, touch, and everything that happens between us.
What can be recovered? What do we let go of? What do we carry forward? Who are we?
The pandemic, political instability, the economic crisis, and the war at the border have changed both our individual lives and the way we relate to one another, to our own bodies, and to the community. Physical distancing and the increasing mediation of relationships through screens have exacerbated a crisis of direct contact and, with it, the need for unmediated experiences: face-to-face encounters, physical presence, and emotions felt in the body and shared with others.
About the project
The Active Art methodology upon which SUMA is built proposes art as a collective process of shared experience, in which the boundary between artist and audience, between performer and witness, becomes permeable. During the 8 hours, the audience moves freely, at their own pace and in whatever order they choose, between the three components and the three spaces. The performance continues along the paths connecting them—which are best explored on foot—and Bucharest thus becomes the fourth space of the performance. The project also includes Bogdan Georgescu’s exhibition “365,” built around a collection of 365 pairs of earrings photographed daily between May 1, 2019, and April 30, 2020. Begun before the pandemic and completed two months after it began, the collection becomes an archive of places, experiences, and days, and brings to SUMA the perspective of an individual form of recovery. From here, the project takes the question further: how do we do this together?
SUMA is an Active Art project coordinated by Bogdan Georgescu, alongside Paula Dunker and Raj Alexandru Udrea, which explores the possibilities of community recovery and regeneration through shared, in-person experiences.
With: Paula Dunker, Sergiu Diță, Octavia Vartenciuc, Yurii A.D., Sabina, Sergiu Diță
Participation
Participation is by reservation only. Click HERE.
Artist Biographies
Paula Dunker works in the live arts field as a poétesse, actress, director, playwright, choreographer, and most recently a librarian. She dances nonstop, generates movement, creates performances and costumes, writes, organizes events, works as a trainer and coordinator, produces music, sings, dubs cartoons, acts in films, DJs. A queer body activist, she is most often found on the local contemporary dance scene, at the heart of Bucharest’s political theater, and on LGBTQIA+ dance floors. She believes that poetry and dance will save the world.
Octavia Varteniuc (known locally—and beyond—as Octavia 007 or Madame 8, depending on the context) is a multidisciplinary trans artist with a background in
non-academic performance background that is relevant to the subcultures that have welcomed her as a guest. She formally holds the title of “femme queen” in the European ballroom scene as an independent artist (she does not currently belong to any house), has participated in multiple international waacking and voguing workshops, has performed locally in clubs, in collaboration with artists for music videos, as well as on theater stages; she has participated in competitions in this field and continues to stay connected to her background as a performer. She has been active locally since 2019 and internationally since 2023. For SUMA, Octavia will bring to the stage the experience she has gained over the years, combining the knowledge she has acquired from cultural icons and legends with what she has learned in workshops and through her work with the team—and, by extension, her colleagues—during rehearsals.
Yurii A. D. is an actor, music producer, and visual artist with an affinity for the avant-garde and an eclectic artistic perspective, shaped by his experiences in theater and film.
Sabina Rusu—An unapologetically queer artist, actress, and performer who doesn’t ask permission to be herself and take up space. I have an unquenchable thirst to express myself through any medium—whether it’s my voice, my body, a pencil, or whatever happens to be at hand.
Sergiu Diță is an emerging performer and choreographer based in Bucharest. He completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Choreographic Art at the National University of Theater and Film Arts in 2023 and studied at the Academy of Dance and Performance of the National Dance Center in Bucharest. His artistic practice explores pop culture as a tool for social critique through processes of recycling, sampling, and remixing. His performance MANual (2023) was presented at Mittelyoung 2024 (Italy), and MEMETICS (2024) was nominated for “Best Choreography” at the 2025 UNITER Awards Gala. Together with Anca Stoica, he co-founded Platforma 13, a collective honored by the CNDB in 2025 for its collaborative and transdisciplinary practices. The duo’s projects, including Pop Recycling Body Work and Balkan Ballerinas, have been presented in international contexts across Europe and the U.S. Sergiu choreographs movement for theater productions in Bucharest, Timișoara, and Cluj-Napoca.
Complete schedule
SUMA performances take place on September 10, 11, 19, 20, and 27, from 2:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., at Galeria 26, Atelier 35, and—depending on the day—Linotip – Independent Choreographic Center or the National Center for Dance in Bucharest.
The “365” exhibition can be visited at Atelier 35 from September 10–27, on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM, as well as on days when there are no performances. No registration is required to visit the exhibition.
A project produced by ADO – Art for Human Rights, with support from AFCN.
Partners: National Center for DanceBucharest, Linotip – Independent Choreographic Center, Atelier 35, Gallery 26. Media partners: Scena9, RFI Romania, CUTRA.
This project is part of the Political Theater Season.
A cultural project co-funded by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund.
The project 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 its results may be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the grant recipient.
19.09.2026
Saturday
14:00
Saturday
14:00
SUMA, an Active Art project about community recovery and regeneration
With: Paula Dunker, Sergiu Diță, Octavia Vartenciuc, Yurii A.D., Sabina, Sergiu Diță
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