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Tag: National Dance Center

  • 2018 – a new stage in the activity of the National Dance Center Bucharest

    2018 – a new stage in the activity of the National Dance Center Bucharest

    The National Dance Centre Bucharest, the only public institution of culture subordinated to the Culture Ministry, which supports, develops and promotes contemporary dance and performing arts in Romania is preparing this year to move to a new location in 2019, more appropriate for its activity. Preparations for this action are accompanied by important projects, which we are going to discuss next.



    The year 2017 ended for the National Dance Centre Bucharest with an Awards Gala, which has been held for the past 4 years and which celebrates excellence without making hierarchies. At the 4th edition of the Awards Gala, the Center’s team chose to pay homage to several personalities who, during the 20th century, set the foundation of the contemporary choreographic context in Romania. ‘The pioneers of Romanian dance proved a lot of courage, they broke dogmas and emancipated dance’ said Vava Stefanescu, the manager of the National Dance Center Bucharest. The winners of the 2017 Awards Gala of the National Dance Center Bucharest, designated following the research activity undertaken by the Centre’s specialist department, are choreographers and dancers Floria Capsali, Vera Proca-Ciortea, Iris Barbura, Lizica Codreanu, Paule Sybille, Stere Popescu, Gabriel Negri, Esther Maghiar and Trixy Checais.



    These proposals were actually a preview of what will be happening this year and in 2019, as well as in the activity of the Centre, said manager Vava Stefanescu: “It was kind of a radical option for the National Dance Centre Bucharest because now at the Centre a stage has come to an end and another one is beginning. In 2019 we will move to a building that is more appropriate for the activity of the Centre. So far we have had a certain type of activity, that of promotion, we have had a certain tendency of making contemporary dance visible. From now on, we need a different vision, a different way of looking at things. I think we need an institutional change for the better or a different institutional attitude, given that we are going to move to a new location, in Omnia Hall, on Popisteanu street, in Bucharest. Whenever a stage comes to an end, one feels the need to take a look back at the previous stage, for the sake of comparison. Thanks to these people contemporary dance has a future in Romania. We considered it a must to pay homage to these personalities, whom we should not forget. We should look at their achievements and, in a way, try to experience their successes, courage, speeches, and why not their courage to break with tradition and go beyond limits. Therefore, the spirit of these artists is to be revived at our Dance Centre. You take a look back but you are actually looking at the future.”



    The National Dance Center in Bucharest is at once producer, host, training and research entity, and also a mediator.



    Here is Vava Stefanescu once again, this time giving details on the strategy by means of which she intends to bring about change in all the aforementioned levels: ”The center will move to new premises in the city center, and I think that 2018 and partially 2019 will be years of preparation, to be able to open the gates for the public in 2019 in the broader sense of the word, with a clear-cut message, with a clear-cut attitude. And that is very important. That is why I believe the first axis of this strategy is intensifying ideas, dialogue and public presentations. There are many projects, to be further multiplied, and if they are not multiplied, they are sure to be longer-lasting, for their impact to be bigger, or they will need a visibility effort and an amount of involvement from the public that will be much more important than what we have managed to achieve so far. We try to multiply stage performances proper, with co-productions, productions or performances that have been invited over, not only in Bucharest, but also elsewhere across the country. We have not managed to open branches or ‘antennas’ of the Bucharest National Dance Center in the other cities because the Justice Ministry told us such a decision would have to be endorsed by Parliament, which is so very interesting. But we ARE going to set up the loose ends we need and which our public countrywide needs. We all know choreographic culture cannot be clustered only in Bucharest.”



    Part of the same strategy is the setting up of mini-seasons in a string of towns across the country. For starters, they will be staged in Craiova and Targu Mures. Then there will follow Iasi, Cluj, Timisoara, perhaps Constanta and Brasov.”



    We wrap up with a view on contemporary dance in Romania, provided ‘from the Center’. The Manager of the Bucharest National Dance Center, choreographer Vava Stefanescu believes contemporary dance looks really good: ”It looks much better than 10 years ago. It seems to me that it succeeded to align itself, yet it has not succeeded to have a voice of its own, a voice it could compose for itself. In other words, artistic thought is in short supply of such thinking, there is a shortage of really new and bold ideas. It’s a fine thing that contemporary dance receives invitations from everywhere, there are many productions…many more than even four years ago. Festivals have even emerged, as well as theatres with a stage production record…That is very good! Yet they are part of the same unassuming esthetics. Daring or more problematic themes begin to lose steam, they’re beginning to be deprived of the attention of the public. The Bucharest National Dance Centre has been striving and fighting to offer broader frameworks where the public and the artists alike can feel they are being represented. Also, it is the artists’ mission to be authentic, to fight in order to assert their individual voice, their personal voice. I would be happy if they opted for exposing themselves more to the risk of not being applauded that much, but instead, be willing to stir questions, to stir debates through what they do. The Centre will never be able to achieve that on its own, but artists are in greater numbers. As for the public, its numbers are even greater. The driving slogan for our activity and the wars we shall fight in 2018 is the one by means of which we tell everybody ‘You are the context.’ You are the context, you do, you construct the context. I think it is very important that the people, the public and artists alike, empower themselves and be aware that they have a place and a volume around them, and things happen according to them. And that is true not only for the Bucharest National Dance Center. It should also happen in politics, in the economy, it should happen in social life as well.”

  • National Dance Center Hosts Performance dedicated to Isidore Isou

    National Dance Center Hosts Performance dedicated to Isidore Isou

    The British mezzo-soprano Loré Lixenberg and French composer Frédéric Acquaviva each presented a musical performance inspired from Isidore Isous works.



    Born in the northern Romanian town of Botosani in 1925 and settling in France after World War 2, in 1945, Isidore Isou is still little known in Romania, which is precisely why this event was staged in Bucharest, and will be continued with other projects as well.



    As for the staging of the event at the National Dance Center in Bucharest, curator Igor Mocanu explained: Isidore Isou, just like any other artist with diverse, if not all-encompassing, interests, put together a manifesto and wrote a number of theoretical texts on dance. As a counterpoint to the jumps specific to German Expressionism in the early stages of the dance avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s, he came up with the choreography of falls, of plunging bodies. Weve been toying with the idea of doing something that focuses on this element of Isous work, at the National Dance Center in Bucharest. Apart from their interests in contemporary art, be they sound-related or not, they are very good analysts of Isidore Isous work. Actually, Frederic owns an impressive collection of Isous books and works.“



    The performance dedicated to Isidore Isou started with the screening of a two-minute excerpt from a documentary made by Orson Welles and titled “Around the World in Saint-Germain des Prés. The documentary was filmed on location at the Fischbacher Bookshop in Paris in 1955, and the footage features Isidore Isou and Maurice Lemaître, alongside Jacques Spacagna and Orson Welles.



    In her performance, mezzo-soprano Loré Lixenberg included a few works created over 1947-1984. “Weve chosen a selection of works which go across quite a large timeframe, from 1945 to 1984. So Ive chosen a work, which was one of his earliest works, Neige/Snow. The genius, part of the genius of Isou, is that he takes a situation he was in and transforms it into a form, rather that going for the theatricalisation of it. So its Neige, then Im also going to perform some of his soundless poems, which are about gesture and implication. Its fascinating from the point of view of being a performer, because its such rich material, its such a wealth of different sounds there, and I also love the disassociation of sound from meaning, its really on…maybe quite a shallow level is very good fun. It feels very nice in my mouth, its got good mouth feel.“



    Towards the end of his life, Isidore Isou took a closer interest in music, and the second part of the event in Bucharest included a piece from that very period of time. The piece is Symphony no 4, Juvenal, composed in 2001 and arranged by Frédéric Acquaviva in 2003. The French composer met Isou in the last ten years of the latters life and together they wrote a couple of symphonies orchestrated by Acquaviva.



    Frederic Acquaviva has also described Isidore Isous music works: “He left Romania just after the war and arrived in Paris in 1945 and his idea was to do Lettrist poetry, which was a mix between poetry and music, so thats what later most people say when they use the term sound poetry. But in fact Lettrist poetry is a kind of poetry that uses only the voice and the movements and sounds that you could do with your body, so its a kind of body sound and its much in advance because its a totally abstract poetry. His music is basically like,…it sounds also a bit primitive because its also with kinds of loops. Its very bizarre. Juvenal is the fourth symphony because we did together the five symphonies and this one, because I orchestrated it with a choir, and so I would say that you dont really know which time you are, which country and thats quite interesting and its quite specific.



    Composer Frédéric Acquaviva has already organized a series of events in Europe dedicated to Isidore Isou, and is set to continue his projects. Frédéric Acquaviva: “Ive done many things already, because Ive done like several exhibitions already, Ive done also several books on him and Ive done a book with the Romanian Cultural Institute in Stockholm about his hypergraphic novels, it was also done, some fantastic things in the novel., but also we are here in the Center of Dance, hes also done some fantastic choreographies, that are like these 40 years beyond this time, because when he wrote in the 50s is what you get in contemporary dance in the 90s in France, for example, and.. so, right now Im working on several projects on him, but more specifically, the first big monograph on his paintings and artworks. So I hope its done and will be published this year and, by, bizarrely, its Les Editions du Griffon who published the first monograph on Brancusi in the 50s.

  • 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.