The Association for Theatre and Books (PETEC) brought the project More Reasons to Dance?to Timișoara, which included two dance workshops, Contact Improvisationand Poetic Movement, open to the general public. The workshops took place on November 6 and 10 at FITT, Sala Rotunda (Casa Tineretului, str. Aries no. 19).

On November 9, the project culminated with the performance of the international co-production All in Good Time, made together with Echo Echo Dance Theatre Company from Northern Ireland, held at the "Ion Vidu" Art High School (str. Cluj no. 12).

The series of events, with free access upon reservation, offered participants the opportunity to explore contemporary dance as a form of poetic and profound expression, bringing the audience closer to the performing arts.

Attention and intention that transform movement into poetry

In the two workshops held in Timișoara, performers Cătălin Diaconu and Virginia Negru brought together their experience from the production of the performance "All in Good Time" with elements from Poetic Movement to offer the general public and professionals a wider range of movement possibilities that arise when we become aware of the different degrees of poetic tension offered by working with distance, proximity, and the meaning of movement.

The practice proposed in the project "More reasons to Dance?" is a perspective developed by the Irish choreographer Steve Batts, "Poetic movement", a dance and composition practice through movement that sensitizes and awakens the dancer's embodied memory and imagination, brings it into the present space and time and transforms it through attention. Thus, dance is transformed into real movement, in real time and space with poetic intention.

This seemingly simple vision was developed into a detailed set of exercises of attention, presence, mood, emotional and physical intensity, through a system of decoding and notation of the relationship to space and time, and ways of articulating meaning through movement inspired by phrasing patterns in music, literature and poetry "bits of information that want to make sense''.

The students of the "Ion Vidu" art high school had dedicated workshops alongside the artistic team, but were also supported in participating in workshops open to the general public at the Round Hall, FITT.

ALL IN GOOD TIME – dance performance @ Ion Vidu High School, performance hall

  • an intimate, warm, multi-layered world –

"What if we looked at dance closer to poetry, than to the visual arts or theater?

Each movement – the opening of a world, a language with its own meanings?

Each pause – an attentive wait, a space charged with meaning?

Each performance – a complete work, equal to itself, without the need to justify itself through the mediation of other arts?

What would it be like if dancers and choreographers worked freed from the influence of music and textual narratives, armed with the confidence that their artistic language is sufficient for itself, accessible to the public at the same time?"

These are the perspectives from which the international group of dance artists from Romania, the Republic of Moldova and Northern Ireland began their exploration, within the project No reason to dance? in April 2024 at the National Museum of Romanian Literature Iași. Their research culminated in the creation of the show All in Good Time, which premiered in July 2024 at the Echo Echo Dance Theatre Company in Ireland, and in September it was presented in Chisinau at the Eugene Ionesco Theatre, in Iași at the House of Museums and in Bucharest at the National Dance Centre.

Created and performed by: Alexandra Soshnicova, Serghey Golovnea, Cătălin Diaconu, Virginia Negru

Concept and choreography: Steve Batts

Sound composition: Colin Norrby

Lighting design: Barry Davis

Lighting and sound specialist: Cristian Mihai Popescu

More reasons to Dance? opens the doors to a new audience in the performing arts, emphasizing the fact that dance does not need a reason external to itself to unfold, to communicate and to excite.

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"More Reasons to Dance?" is a PETEC project funded by the Municipality of Timișoara through the Timișoara Project Center.

Partners: Echo Echo Dance Theatre, "Ion Vidu" Art High School, Concentric Projects, FITT

Media partners: Radio România Cultural, Radio România Internațional, Days and Nights, Ziarul Metropolis, Revista Golan, Observator Cultural, The Institute, Bookhub, Happ.ro, Spotmedia, LIFE.ro, Palindrome