Radio România Internațional

Tag: choreography

  • Cancer, Choreographed

    Cancer, Choreographed

    Today’s topic is quite sensitive, it is cancer, more specifically breast cancer. We will be talking about a novel way of raising awareness on this subject, the contemporary dance show called Choreographing Cancer. It was born out of a meeting between Catalina Florescu, playwright and instructor with Pace University in New York, and choreographer Cosmin Manolescu. It is centered on a male character who has breast cancer. This performance wants to draw attention to people, who, irrespective of gender, are afflicted by this condition. It also sheds light on the way in which society answers, or fails to answer, their medical, social, and emotional needs. This show was designed as part of a choreography residency in 2022 at AREAL Bucharest. The show was described as an emotional, cathartic, and participative experience. The choreography is signed by Cristina Lilienfeld and Cosmin Manolescu, founding members of AREAL, a space for developing choreography. The team, however, is much larger than the two founders.



    Cosmin Manolescu told us that the idea of dance itself is, for him, a celebration of life and death:


    “Choreographing Cancer talks about a difficult subject, very emotionally fraught for those who went through cancer or work with it. From this perspective, I am happy to have with me these beautiful people, who said Yes when I asked them to engage with the project. Cancer does not afflict only women, but men as well, and for our premiere of the show in New York we will have on stage a survivor of breast cancer, Michael Singer, who is a very special person, and will be talking to us on stage, in America. I had an indirect harrowing experience with cancer, and I think that experience has helped give shape to the way in which this show reaches out to the audience.




    One by one, the performers ask themselves what is left of us from life. Cristina Lilienfeld told us about taking distance from the initial text, without leaving its framework:


    “Right from the start, there was this idea of accepting death, suffering, of celebration. What we actually did was to make these things more explicit through performative gestures. It is important for people to leave with more hope, and this idea that each moment has to be lived to its fullest. I think the seed has always been there, I I think this is why Catalina was so open, because playwrights care a lot about the format they propose, but she was very open to any change we proposed. We were on the same wavelength, in fact.



    In late September 2022, composer Sabina Ulubeanu joined the team, as she herself told us:



    “I resonated right from the start with the idea of the text, and what they were doing. We all took part in rehearsal, we attended their workshops. I got closer to this world of theirs, starting from the reading of Catalina’s text in New York. It was very interesting for me, because, at moment I wrote this, we had an enormous amount of video material, we had the discussions, we had everything. However, I pretended to forget it all, and I let intuition guide me, and basically I accessed this layer that resonated with me during rehearsal and discussions. I wrote only from that source.



    Cinty Ionescu is responsible with the video design of the show:


    “I think that I did not try to follow a definite epic in this movie I made for the show, which inspired me after that to find direction for the various moments of the show. In terms of the topic, which is difficult and quite personal for many of us, it was very difficult for me to start the work. All these meetings, discussions, and rehearsals I had next to Cristina and Cosmin were very useful, and they brought me to this point.



    The framework of the show keeps us watching with baited breath, symbolizing an ever prevailing life. This is the unanimous belief of the team that made this contemporary dance show. Part of this team is Alina Comanescu, patient navigator, who has a clear message within the show, that of having prevention defeat statistics:



    “What we see on stage is a plea for prevention. Unfortunately, statistically speaking, one out of three may come down with cancer. It is a tough statistic, but 40% of cases are preventable, with a healthy and balanced lifestyle. I think this is what it’s all about: we don’t try to stigmatize, we want to send a message that if you are ok with yourself, if you learn to be good to yourself, you can avoid being that one out of the three.



    Alexandros Raptis, a live DJ who is also in charge of the lighting, added:



    “This is a very difficult topic, and it is not well known by people, unfortunately. When you do this work, it is very difficult to avoid falling in a stifling theatricality when you take part in a show called Choreographing Cancer. At the same time, if you try too hard to avoid that, it is easy to take it too lightly. What I liked the most was the alternation of states of mind. In terms of the show, sometimes it looks like theater, sometimes like a performance, and at times it actually looks like we have a party.



    The national premiere of the show was held on April 6 and 7, 2023 at the ARCUB building, while the international premiere is scheduled to be held on April 26, 2023, at the Jersey Theater City Center, and on April 28, 2023 at the RCI in New York. It will be back in Romania in June.


  • The National Dance Center at its 10th anniversary

    The National Dance Center at its 10th anniversary

    An amazing professional solidarity and lobby consisting of street protests, press reports, letters abroad in 2004 sparked off the issuing of a government resolution on the establishment of the National Dance Center in Bucharest, also known as the CNDB.



    With a 10-year long activity, the CNDB is the only public cultural institution, subordinated to the Ministry of Culture, whose aim is to support, develop and promote contemporary dance in Romania. Its motto is: ‘people that move the world.



    But what does a decade of the CNDBs activity mean? Here is the CNDBs manager, choreographer Vava Stefanescu with more:



    “We should not forget there have been several names in contemporary dance, choreographers, dancers, cultural managers, who have assumed the construction of this institution. The first Id like to mention is Mihai Mihalcea, who was the first director of this center and who imposed a certain type of contemporary creation in this sector of Romanian culture. This new genre stands good chances of becoming popular from now on, as its foundations have already been laid.



    The CNDB began its activity in 2006 with a view to introducing into the Romanian cultural landscape, ‘an art and an institution, ‘which cant be pegged into a specific category shunning inertia and stubbornly experimenting, striving to educate and take chances. Because this is what any institution, willing to create a lively artistic domain, should do. Here is Vava Stefanescu again.



    “We are a state-funded institution fostering the contemporary discourse. That is what we promote and do and we feel entitled to have access to all the means so that this contemporary creation may develop. We believe that all that means contemporary creation, including contemporary dance, is worth investing in. I avail myself of this right, as I am at the helm of this institution, the only one subordinated to the Ministry of Culture, dealing in contemporary dance, which has a major potential, because it looks into the future and it educates the public. I think that contemporary dance is entitled to funding.



    The National Dance Center has been created for artists, who, in turn, offer a product to the audience, so, the institutions ten years existence has benefited both the artists and the audience. Vava Stefanescu:



    “For the past 10 years, the CNDB has produced shows, educated people, has carried out various research projects and debates. There are four categories, which have seen most of the investment and funds of several kinds have been made available for artists to implement their projects. It is the only institution of its kind with no artists on its payroll. It both hosts and organizes events, not just shows, which more often than not fail to find a place of their own in todays society. In addition, for 7 years, the Centre financed a series of choreographic projects. The fact that this financing was successful, sometimes resulting even in two successful projects every year, made the contemporary dance grow stronger, with many artists choosing to go solo, working with their own resources. We are no longer where we were back in 2004. Artists can now carry out their projects and increase their visibility.



    To mark 10 years of existence and activity, the National Dance Centre has decided to award 6 prizes for activity in the field of contemporary dance. The prizes rewarded efforts to promote contemporary dance in difficult cultural contexts, substantial projects, artistic attitudes, efforts to render this field more professional or simply the determination to endure and persevere while maintaining contemporary dance among the most iconic and avant-garde means of artistic expression. The prizes were all symbolic, being awarded in the form of a brick, standing for the foundation that led to the emergence of Romanian contemporary dance as a professional field. Ioan Tugearu, Mihaela Dancs, Cosmin Manolescu, Silvia Ghiaţă, Alexandra Pirici, Manuel Pelmus and Mihai Mihalcea were some of the recipients of the award. Here is Vava Stefanescu:



    “I want to point out that Ioan Tugearu was key to founding the Centre. Silvia Ghita has for years promoted Romanian dance in her show “The World of Dance, featuring not only Romanian artists, but foreign artists who performed in Romania as well. Her one-hour show, broadcast every week, is now legend, and already has a legacy. Those people who care about the legacy of dance are extremely important. It was those people who inspired us to create the awards.



    What does the future have in store for the Centre? Choreographer and manager Vava Stefanescu believes contemporary dance is a long-term investment. The higher the investment, the better the results. That is why she has labelled her management strategy “The Marshall plan for contemporary dance. The strategy includes five large-scale projects, involving investment in several directions. The first project refers to dance shows, drawing on the financial resources of the Centre, but also of other theatres of producers. The second focuses on the distribution of shows. The Centre aims at supporting performing arts institutions that want to stage or produce a contemporary dance show, by covering up to 50% of the productions costs or its presentation costs. The third project in the strategy focuses on education, and will be implemented in choreography high schools, with the possibility to be expanded to kindergardens, schools and high schools with a non-vocational profile. The centre also has a promising research project, which in 2016 will result in a portal of Romanian contemporary dance. Adding up to the aforementioned four projects will be the pop-up category, allowing ideas that are developed in the process to be expressed on stage.