Between 2010-2014 I have accompanied, produced and/ or presented several dance shows that I’m very fond of and that are still performed. Get the taste of it by reading and watching bits of these. If you are presented interested in any of the below performances, please contact me at stefania@artsf.ro for more details and the link to the full videos.
[FRAGILE] (2014)
“Alice in Wonderland” fans will simply love this piece. [Fragile] is a heterogeneous performance that proposes an experiential incursion in a universe both realistic and fictional, which questions the fragility and vulnerability of our daily life. Who we are, what do we like, how much do we pay attention to the others, to their way of being and to their emotional needs, how the world we live in influences us. [Fragile] is a dance performance, a choreographic installation, a performative game, a party or simply an experience that works with the multiplicity of our identities. It ultimately talks about the status of the arts, about the responsibility of the artist and the role of the audience.
A performance by: Cosmin Manolescu
Created in collaboration with: Giselda Ranieri, Tanja Andreeva, Cristian Nanculescu
Producer: Ștefania Ferchedău
Associate producer: Laura Orlescu
Light design: Cosmin Manolescu
Production: Serial Paradise / Gabriela Tudor Foundation
Created with support from: the Culture programme of the European Union, Administration of the National Cultural Fund Bucharest 555 cultural program of ARCUB, a Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship
Partners: Centre de Création Chorégraphique Luxembourgeois – TROIS C-L, Association of Professional Dance Choreographers of Latvia, Fabrica de Movimentos
Duration: 1h30 or 3h (with break)
Watch the trailer:
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PIECE WITH LIMITED RESPONSIBILITY (2013)
The performers are auditioning for an absent choreographer, trying to give their best to be chosen to perform in an ideal piece. A show in which two artists are permanently negotiating their common process, their identities and limits being questioned and swaped along the piece. An experiment about the roles we play and what we would like to be for real.
After an idea by: Cosmin Manolescu, Mihaela Dancs, Ștefania Ferchedău
Artistic direction & performance: Mihaela Dancs & Cosmin Manolescu
Producer: Ștefania Ferchedău
Production: ZonaD/ Fundația Gabriela Tudor
Funders: Administration of the National Cultural Fund
Supported by: National Dance Centre Bucharest
Duration: approx. 50 min.
“Performers and watchers alike we are all released of the any moral coming out of this show, of any deep meaning generated by symbols or encoded gestures. Things are what they are, and their pure simplicity, their repetition, the honesty of the frontal unconditioned exposure of the limits of the bodies exposed to physical exhaustion – all of these create an authentic, unsimulated exchange of energies.” – review by Cristina Modreanu (Scena.ro magazine, April 2014)
Watch the trailer:
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(ANTI) AGING (2011)
(anti) aging was created with the intention to be remade after 30 years, in 2041. Mădălina Dan and Mihaela Dancs propose the creative sanatorium format, aiming for delight, relaxation and psychic comfort, enjoyment of pleasure, vitality and voluptuousness, serene acceptance of the present and preservation for the future.
(anti) aging was premiered in October 2011 at the National Museum of Contemporary Arts in Bucharest, then it was presented extensively in Romania (Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Timișoara, Gheorgheni), as well as in Riga and Cork, as part of the E-Motional Bodies & Cities, and in Venice.
Concept, choreography & performance: Mădălina Dan, Mihaela Dancs
Light design: Cătălin Nicolescu
Technical support: Mihai Dragomir
Advisor & presenter: Ștefania Ferchedău
Partners & funders: National Dance Centre Bucharest, E-motional Bodies& Cities/ Gabriela Tudor Foundation, artsf
“(anti) aging is a tonic and tender performance about an age which smolders with the memory of certain impulses and strong sensations. It is an affective map of the future, as it appears projected within existing voices. It is an emotional manifest of the ones-we-will-become, as we would have in our hands a photography of ourselves at different ages.” (Mihaela Michailov, Art Act Magazine, no. 139, 26.10.2011)
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ROOM 1306 [I AM MYSELF] (2011)
performance-installation for a hotel-room / gallery / apartment
“Room 1306 [I Am Myself]” is a performance-installation by Cosmin Manolescu to be presented for a 6-hour span in the space of a hotel room, gallery or private space. The limits of intimacy and togetherness are investigated, while audience becomes (in)voluntarily part of the highly sensorial universe created by the performers. The spectator is transformed in a voyeur witness, watching and being also watched during the performance. Be ready, anything can happen!
concept: Cosmin Manolescu
choreography & performance: Cosmin Manolescu & Catrinel Catană
management: Ștefania Ferchedău
co-produced by: Gabriela Tudor Foundation and National Dance Centre Bucharest
associated partner: InterContinental Hotel Bucharest
with the support of: Cullberg Ballet (Stockholm) and 4Culture Association (Bucharest), in the frame of Wild Cards – Jardin d’Europe, “George Apostu” Cultural Centre in Bacau, and a private Maecenas
touring & performances 2011-2014 supported by: Administration of the Romanian Cultural Fund, Romanian Cultural Institute – Bucharest and Stockholm, Time to Dance Festival, Riga, ZonaD studio, HomeFest/ lorgean theatre
“Room 1306 – I Am Myself brings into focus the body in a private space. It moves the accent on the subiectivity of the performer and, at the same time, changes the position of the viewer from the one of spectator into that of a voyeur that violates and transforms intimacy into performance through his simple presence. This changes continuously the power relations inside the performance along its entire duration.” – Cristina Modreanu, ArtAct magazine, July 13, 2011
“Each spectator can draw the scenario of what is happening there, which makes the connection with Wong Kar Wai’s famous movie, 2046, where one cannot say exactly what is the title referring to, a hotel room, a place, a name, a state of mind, anyhow something that escapes definition, something mysterious and of course, fragile.” – Oana Stoica, Dilema Veche, July 14, 2011
Watch the trailer: