What if we could conceive of dance without the support of music or words, if we could feel and define it as a self-contained expression, a unique language, self-sufficient and at the same time accessible to the viewing public? PETEC, in partnership with the Echo Echo Dance Theatre company and Flowerfield Arts Centre, formed an international team in search of an answer to this question, starting from the philosophy and practice of Poetic Movement, formulated by the Irish choreographer Steve Batts, within the project Moving forward? – intention released into movement. The project was set up in four stages – a series of four workshops aimed at young people and adults, brought together under the title Intention released into movement, a dance performance presented in the Flowerfield Arts Center, entitled All in Good Time, a roundtable discussion in the Derry arts community, and a movement workshop aimed at audiences over 50, entitled Body Wisdom.
The activity of the team formed by artists from Romania (Virginia Negru, Cătălin Diaconu), Moldova (Alexandra Soshnicova, Serghey Golovnea) and Northern Ireland (Steve Batts) was based on previous research and collaborations, which start from the premise that movement is never random, or just for the sake of movement, but also that it does not need to resort to music, text or theatrical dramaturgy to justify its existence. Thus, the workshops represented an invitation addressed to the public to experiment and become familiar with movement and composition techniques, starting from their own movements, from the memory and imagination already contained in each person's body, in order to subsequently transform them into dance by investing them with attention and poetic intention. Through intention, movement is charged with meaning and artistic content.
Movement can be understood as a specific language, which everyone already knows intuitively and which can become dance when we create the right framework. The Body Wisdom senior group – a group of amateur dancers that has been holding their meetings for six years in Derry, Northern Ireland, under the guidance of the dancers of the Echo Echo Dance Theatre company – had the opportunity, through this international project, to meet and work with the artistic team from Romania and thus broaden their horizons of experience. The framework created by the Romanian dancers opened new perspectives on movement, a participatory, safe environment with positive effects in the community, expanding the audience of Romanian cultural operators to a new category of international audience.
The proposed approach is that of dance as a ritual of communication of what is immaterial, spiritual, poetic, imaginary. It is an act of resonance of the body in the present moment, so that those who have passed their prime youth can leave behind limiting perceptions of movement and, through dance, open the gate to their poetic body.
The international artistic team performed the show All in Good Time, on August 2, 2024, from 7:30 p.m., on the stage of the Flowerfield Arts Center in Portstewart, Northern Ireland, a unique space in its construction, dedicated to contemporary art, performing arts and creative education programs in the United Kingdom. On the occasion of the show, the wall behind the stage was removed, thus opening the audience's perspective to the image of a natural setting, a living and luminous counterpoint to the hall.
The show approached dance as a compositional perspective on the world, a meditation on how performers are transformed by their actions, in which every movement and every pause has its place and meaning, thus giving shape to one of the central questions of the research that led to the creation of the show: "what is the grammar and syntax of time and space?"
The series of events within the project Moving forward? – intention released into movement organized by PETEC is supported by The Romanian Cultural Institute, offering platforms of expression between the dance scenes of Romania and Northern Ireland. The project aims to open up an interdisciplinary collaboration to an international audience, at the border between choreography and movement philosophy, in the context of professionalism ensured by choreographers and performers at the highest level. Truly, it is a "step forward" for the dance scene.
This project is co-financed by Romanian Cultural Institute / Romanian Cultural Institute, through the CANTEMIR Program – a funding program for cultural projects aimed at the international environment. The Romanian Cultural Institute is not responsible for the content of the project or for the way in which the project results may be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the funding beneficiary.
Partners: Echo Echo Dance Theatre, Flowerfield Arts Centre.
