Pop elements, trends and internet slang – a new premiere at the National Center for Dance Bucharest.
After “MANual”, the show that filled every performance at the National Dance Centre Bucharest (CNDB), Sergiu Diță, a choreographer on the rise, returns with a new premiere. Audiences are invited to “Memetics”, a contemporary dance performance inspired by digital culture, on 11 and 12 May. A show that will go viral, but not on the Internet, but on stage.
Memetics is an archive of digital culture, a performative space of hyperlinks transferred into the body, on which the author intervenes by remixing and re-contextualising.
The generation and spread of information online, analogous to the phenomenon of spreading viruses, changes the perception of reality and is transferred into the mode of cultural production. Starting from memes, the performance aims at the hybridization of bodies, placed between the real and the virtual plane of the avatar. As a technique, Memetics proposes juxtapositions of transgressive, critical and post-ironic elements that blur the boundary between public and private. The show proposes a fragmented, scrolling vision of reality with pop elements, trends, internet slang and viral images promoted in the Web 2.0 era. Tickets for the Bucharest performances are already on sale and can be found HERE.
A young choreographer with a strong and recognizable voice
Sergiu Diță is a young choreographer on the rise, but has already built up a recognisable choreographic language. In his performances, Sergiu Diță uses the “manifesto-collage-recitative” technique, which involves critical exposition of the subject, collage of quotations, socio-cultural clichés and text. His research involves recycling, sampling and remixing processes. “I integrate pop culture in a maximalist way into my practice to re-contextualise and hybridise already familiar images, movements and aesthetics. This kind of accessibility presented in a form with variations provides contexts for cultural reset. Pop culture supports the collage of diverse formats (musically, textually, movement-wise and in the presentation of an artistic act). Pop culture is usually associated with the industrial, the artificial and capitalist means, but I use it to critique cultural production itself.” (Sergiu Diță)
A co-production between two state institutions with different profiles
The show is co-produced with the Andrei Mureșanu Theatre in Sfântu Gheorghe and is the Grand Prize of the DbutanT Festival-competition, organized last year by TAM and the Constanta State Theatre, in partnership with CNDB and won by Sergiu Diță. “The DbutanT Festival was born out of the acute desire and need to invest in the young generation. We have been investing in them for 9 years now and the results never cease to amaze us”. (Anna Maria Popa, TAM manager)
Memetics is an important project for both co-producing institutions, as it is one of the few collaborations of its kind in the field of contemporary dance. “TAM and CNDB were co-producers of the DbutanT edition dedicated to choreography. It was clear that the co-production that will represent the DbutanT grand prize would also be a close and extremely important collaboration for both institutions. Both for the audiences in the two cities and for the artistic team, this show is a challenge, but also a great achievement and a source of pride.” (Anna Maria Popa)
About Sergiu Diță’s presence in the repertoire of the CNDB and about this collaboration between two institutions with different specificities, but linked by the desire to constantly promote artistic experimentation, Vava Stefanescu, manager of the National Center for Dance, said: “Sergiu Diță deserved the top prize in the most recent edition of the DbutanT Festival, organized by the Andrei Muresan Theatre, Sf. Gheorghe, with the performance Manual. This award is a double joy for us: first, we are eager to see a new work of the young choreographer on our stages, second, the co-production with TAM is an old wish for CNDB. Because there are few theatres in Romania that produce contemporary dance performances, that understand to include contemporary choreographic performances in their repertoire, and more than that, they programmatically dare to offer young people at the beginning of their career the chance to have all the means for a new performance.”
One of the challenges of the show is that the team is mixed, with performers from both cities. The cast includes Eva Danciu, Sofia Sitaru-Onofrei and Anca Stoica from Bucharest, and Oana Jipa and Fatma Mohamed, actors from TAM. About the challenges of this collaboration, choreographer Sergiu Diță said: “It is challenging for me to work with people who do not have the same artistic background (actresses and dancers) because we have different references and languages, including body language. That’s why it was necessary to question and recalibrate my way of working, to perform a linguistic mash-up and to rethink the body between theatricality, performativity and choreographic composition. In terms of space, the process was equally challenging, but raised questions about adaptability and how a work modulates when transplanted. Conceptually, I think this way of working and the artistic team chosen helped the desired hybridity in Memetics.”
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.
Main media partner
Guerilla Radio
Media Partners
Radio Romania Cultural, TVR Cultural, Adevarul, Arta Magazine, Zile și Nopți, ELLE,Happ.ro, The Institute, ISCOADA, Zeppelin, Feeder, Agerpres, LiterNet, Golan Magazine, Metropolis Newspaper, Visit Bucharest
