ALIENATION

or the desire for intimacy

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY DANCE PROJECT | ROMANIA, SWEDEN, NORTHERN IRELAND: PETEC, LAVA-DANSPRODUKTION, ECHO ECHO DANCE THEATRE COMPANY | 3 KEYWORDS: ALIENATION, DESIRE, INTIMACY| SURVEY TO INTRODUCE YOU IN THE PROJECT ATMOSPHERE | PREMIERE ON NOVEMBER 7 – LIVE-STREAMED FROM UNTEATRU STAGE IN BUCHAREST | +2 PERFORMANCES: MARe & REZIDENȚA BRD SCENA9 | ROUND TABLE WITH THE ARTISTIC TEAM + PSYCHOLOGY-SEXOLOGY SPECIALIST + SOCIOLOGIST | A DOCUMENTARY FILM ABOUT THE CREATION AND WORKING PROCESS

Contemporary dance performance ALIENATION or the desire for intimacy is part of an international project – difficult but also important to maintain now – among artists from 3 countries: Romania, Sweden and Northern Ireland. It is a project that stubbornly moves forward through continuous reinvention and adaptation despite the current restrictions and uncertainties due to COVID-19 pandemic.

The concept gravitates around the 3 keywords: alienation, desire, and intimacy. It is created by the Dutch-Swedish choreographer Benno Voorham and will be performed by Cristina Lilienfeld, Smaranda Găbudeanu, and Simona Baciu on a piece of music composed by Andrei Petrache, all recognized artists from Romania. Echo Echo Dance Theatre Company from Northern Ireland is joining us in the project, but from a distance, since our team’s trip to Derry is no longer possible. However, the Irish team will work in parallel with us, proposing their approach to the theme.

Performances programme

The dance piece will premiere online – due to current restrictions – on November 7. It will be live-streamed from Unteatru stage in Bucharest and taken over by our partners in Sweden, Ireland, Italy, Ghana, Ukraine, and Serbia.

Two more performances will take place in Bucharest, adapting the material for spaces dedicated to visual arts: first on November 5 at the Museum of Recent Art (MARe) and second on November 10 at Rezidenta BRD Scena9.

The concept & production

How can we get closer to others when we don’t let others get closer to us?

How is shame touching desire touching intimacy touching your body touching your soul?

Can I overcome the alienation I often experience between me, myself, and you?

How to be intimate in a virtual world?

When the idea for this project was first developed in 2019, we could not imagine how much the events of the last months have created an even greater urgency. The questions have become pressing, as well as universal today.

The performance we create will be a poetic, visual, moving journey into the underworld of our desires, an intimate journey to what motivates us to be with ourselves and with others.

The working period (a month of intensive rehearsals) started with a research to develop ideas through improvisations and collecting material that will help the artists on their journey into the depths of their desires, their fears, or love towards intimacy. The body and its capacity to reveal through movement what we cannot put into words will be the starting point. We will integrate video to support or contradict the body messages by zooming in to the smallest details, approaching the camera to reveal what is otherwise hidden from the eye, removing it to place the body in a broader context.

Survey to collect stories from others and integrate them into our own stories

Our aim is to gather as many perspectives as possible on the themes we work with. We ask some targeted and pretty bold questions about how each one understands intimacy, about its lack or excess in the relationship with those around us, about the role that shame plays in this whole story. As many answers as possible will help us connect better with the experiences of those around us.

If you want to contribute to this project, we invite you to fill out the questionnaire here

The documentary film

The working process will be documented by Cătălin Munteanu in a film aiming to discover what intimacy, desire, and alienation means to each of the actors. More than transposing these themes into choreography, he is interested in the process of decomposing and recomposing them during the rehearsals: “I wish my intervention to be as non-intrusive as possible, my role – a passive one, only to observe, feel and document”.

Artist talk

For an in-depth exploration of the theme, we will organize an artist talk after the premiere in Bucharest. Our guests, Ovidiu Telegescu, a psychology-sexology specialist, and Fidelie Kalambayi, a sociologist, will debate with the artistic team what intimacy means in the contemporary world.

About

ALIENATION or the desire for intimacy is produced by PETEC in partnership with LAVA-Dansproduktion. The project is co-financed by The Administration of the National Cultural Fund and Konstnärsnämnden – the Swedish Arts Grants Committee.

PETEC (The Cultural Association For Theater And Books) is active in the field of contemporary art since 2013 developing cultural projects and programs focused on interdisciplinary and dialogue.

Since 1997 LAVA-Dansproduktion has been involved in numerous teaching and performance projects in Sweden and various Eastern European countries. In many of the projects, we have collaborated with dance artists, actors, and physical performers. By returning regularly to many of the countries where we have been invited to bring our work to, we have built relations and collaborations with dance artists that stretch over many years.

The project is co-financed by The Administration of the National Cultural Fund and Konstnärsnämnden / The Swedish Arts Grants Committee.

The project doesn’t necessarily represent the position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN is not responsible for the project’s content or for the ways in which its results can be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the grant beneficiary.

Cultural Partners: Echo Echo Dance Theatre Company (Derry, Northern Ireland), Unteatru, Muzeul de Artă Recentă, Rezidența BRD Scena 9, Centrul Național al Dansului București (CNDB)

Main Media Partner: Radio Romania Cultural

Media Partners: CorPoetica (Milano, Italy), PerfocraZe International Artist Residency -p IAR (Kumasi, Ghana), Ruban Produktion (Kiev, Ukraine), MOVE2Collective (Belgrade, Serbia), Munteanu, FEEDER.ro