Landscapes. Distortions. Sergiu Matiș at the Institute of Performance

𝙒𝙖𝙧𝙥𝙨𝙘𝙖𝙥𝙚𝙨. Sergiu Matiș at The Institution of Performance

𝗝𝘂𝗻𝗲 𝟮𝟰–𝟮𝟳, 𝟭𝟮–𝟯 𝗣𝗠 – workshop at Scânteia Projects (Atelierele Scânteia 3rd Floor). The workshop is open to everyone interested in researching dance and performance. Register at theatresteatre@gmail.com

𝗝𝘂𝗻𝗲 𝟮𝟳, 𝟳 𝗣𝗠 – artist talk at Theatres, Schitu Măgureanu 21, upstairs.

The Institution of Performance trusts and treats dance and performance as mediums to access, interact with, build reality around.

During the month of June, The Institution of Performance holds the Chamber Performance Festival and it is honoured to host a workshop—called 𝙒𝙖𝙧𝙥𝙨𝙘𝙖𝙥𝙚𝙨—and an artist talk by Romanian choreographer based in Berlin, Sergiu Matiș. He will share improvisation and composition tools from the Visible Thinking Body (VTB) practice, developed throughout the years during creation processes for all the dance performances he made since 2013.

In the 𝙒𝙖𝙧𝙥𝙨𝙘𝙖𝙥𝙚𝙨 workshop, Sergiu will especially focus on how VTB transformed during his recent performances—𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘱 𝘙𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 and 𝘌𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘴—where he deepened his exploration of ecology and also landscape as artistic methods and how this affects the ecologies between movement, text and voice in his practice, on one hand, and the ecologies between body-mind and environments, cultural & natural, on the other hand.

The movement practice becomes a space to observe and transform our sense of inner and outer distortion and separation by deconstructing and denouncing it but also turning it into a force that might reconnect us back in (to something somehow). It feeds from the nature/culture divide up to the point where there cannot be a divide.

Some reflections on the initial definition of VTB: "With each project, new tools for generating movement were created in VTB, that would appear out of the necessity to resolve the conceptual questions, specific for every project, connected to theory and aware of their politics. At its core, VTB explores how thought—ranging from memory and decision-making to intuition and imagination—transforms into action, and how this transformation generates dance." (S.M.)

𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘱 𝘙𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 proposed different ways of accessing the natural environment by re-examining and investigating the ideological twists to which it has been subjected by the different uses and abuses of landscape. "These distortions are exaggerated to the breaking point, cracking and warping the canvas and screen, and creating fissures in the body, making it permeable and able to resonate with the natural elements it represents. Perhaps through this breaking of traditions—this conceptual vandalism—we can repair and restore our connection to nature, allowing it to flood us again, or at the very least, to return to the dancing body." (S.M.)

𝘌𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘴 starts not from the impact and resonance of the visual but from texts. It explores new ecologies between wounded words and wounded bodies and wounded reality. Texts on ecological grief "carry the dancers through choreography and the dancers, in turn, carry the words through the performance space." (S.M.)

"VTB functions as a flexible system for observing, generating, and organising movement. It can respond to specific artistic or conceptual needs, or remain open-ended to support individual and group kinetic exploration. The practice unfolds along two interwoven paths: one treats the body as an archive of movement memories—excavated, recontextualised, and composed anew towards a speculative ethnography; the other invites a more imaginative navigation, activating the body as a site of kinetic materiality and leading it towards a world-building practice through dance." (S.M.)

Sergiu Matiș is a Romanian choreographer living in Berlin since 2008. His work has been
presented throughout Europe, including at ImPulsTanz (Vienna), Centre National de la
Danse (Paris), PACT Zollverein (Essen), Trafó (Budapest) and DansFabrik (Brest). His most
recent performance, 𝘌𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘴, premiered in December 2024 at Radialsystem Berlin.

The Chamber Performance Festival at the Institution of Performance aims to question the lack of a dedicated institution of this kind and to expand the space and meaning of an institution by hosting works that can take place in a 16sqm room, as well as activities that could never take place within 16sqm and require alliances with partnering institutions.

As an implicit critique of the lack of such an institution and a plea in favor of the power of performance to institute the structures we need, The Institution of Performance is a background gesture that turns all participants into protagonists, while preserving something of the tidal movement of a way of being together unbounded by external means, respecting the individual need for difference, dissensus, and continuous rearticulation. Its texture is acoustic and reflexive.

The Institution of performance is curated by artist Adriana Gheoghe and produced by Theatres and Petec. The program is co-funded by AFCN. The project does not necessarily represent the official position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN shall not be held liable for the project's content or any use to which the project outcome might be put. These are the sole responsibility of the beneficiary of the funding.

Graphics: Sebastian Danciu
Photo: Jubal Battisti
Sergiu's presence at the Institution of Performance in Bucharest is kindly supported by Goethe Institute and French Cultural Institute.