The National Centre for Dance Bucharest will host the first Regional Choreography Biennale

”RE//Dance”, the pilot edition of the Regional Choreography Biennale, will take place between November 1 and November 6, 2016, and will include shows and performances from 6 countries in Central and East Europe, including Romania.

Bucharest, October 20, 2016 – The National Centre for Dance in Bucharest (CNDB) and the East European Performing Arts Platform/EEPAP (Poland) will organise the pilot edition of the Regional Choreography Biennale, titled  “RE//Dance”, between November 1 and November 6, 2016 – the first event of its kind dedicated to the contemporary dance scene in Central and East Europe.

The pilot edition will include shows and performances from Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania and will be curated by Iulia Popovici, critic and curator, and Marta Keil and Goran Injac, as co-curators. The institutional partner of the first Regional Choreography Biennale is Mladinsko Gledališče Ljubljana (Slovenia).

“The 2016 edition of the Regional Choreography Biennale is a pilot edition, and it is primarily a reunion: between audience, artists and the-new-but-also-familiar types of choreography coming from Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and, of course, Romania; between the local scene and the East European producers and artists, between theorists and practitioners”, says Iulia Popovici.

“During this one week encounter we intend to tell and exchange stories: about archives and bodily evanescence, about how and where contemporary choreography was born, about the group and the individual, public space and performative space, about what it means to perform contemporary dance and what it means to watch it. It will be a biennale where we'll experience the choreographing of a <togetherness>”, adds the curator of “RE//Dance”.

“Why organise a contemporary choreography biennale, in an era when festivals come one after the other? For the Romanian public, for the curious public, for the contemporary dance public, for CNDB’s public. Why? Because these audiences are harder to move and it is easier to move the creative spheres from the partner countries. We’re especially interested in this exchange of contexts and ideas that might seem quite similar for the specialists.

The Stere Popescu hall will be, I’m sure, packed, but this is the only way we’ll be able to gauge its impact and prepare the future editions. And until the one in 2019, we hope it will reach the level of the Lyon Biennale, even more so because we hope it will take place in the freshly inaugurated Omnia Hall. The pilot edition in 2016 will present six days of novel shows and performances (one-time only!), debates and round tables, gathered under the idea of legitimising contemporary dance in the East European region. Nevertheless, the selection is not thematic and it’s important to say that it was made with the partners’ proposals as a starting point”, explains Vava Ştefănescu, the manager of CNDB.

This is the programme of the first edition of the Regional Choreography Biennale:

►November 1, 7.30 p.m.: “Roberta Again” (Croatia), by/with Roberta Milevoj

►November 2, 7.30 p.m.: “Total Damage” (Bulgaria), by Ani Vaseva (Metheor Group)

►November 3, 7.30 p.m.: “COREGRAFIE DE GRUP/ GROUP CHOREOGRAPHY” (Romania), by Mihaela Dancs

►November 4,5,6, between 10 a.m. and 9.30 p.m., with a break between 2 p.m. and 3.30 p.m.: “The Stranger Gets a Gift Service – Interruptor” (the Czech Republic), by Cristina Maldonado

►November 4, 7.30 p.m.: performance/game “How to Make a Biennial Festival with 100 Euros and 1.000.000 Euros”, by Ivana Vaseva and Biljana Tanurovska–Kjulavkovski

►November 5, 5 p.m.: East European Performing Arts Platform/EEPAP round table, with Iulia Popovici

►November 5, 7.30 p.m.: “Mothers of Steel” (Poland/Romania), by Agata Siniarska and Mădălina Dan

►November 6, 5.00 p.m.: Performing lecture Agata Siniarska (Poland)

►November 6, 7.30 p.m.: “There’s an Elephant in Every Room...” (Hungary), by László Fülöp

►November 6, 9.30 p.m.: concert/performance “The Great Scheme Of Things” (Romania), by Fierbinţeanu

All the events in “RE//Dance” – the Regional Choreography Biennale will take place at the Stere Popescu hall on Mărăşeşti Boulevard 80-82. The tickets for the shows and performances cost 25 lei (full price) or 15 lei (reduced), while the entrance to the connected events (“How to Make a Biennial Festival with 100 Euros and 1.000.000 Euros”, the EEPAP round table and Agata Siniarska’s lecture) is free. Online tickets on www.kompostor.ro.

East European Performing Arts Platform/EEPAP (Poland), the co-organiser of the first Regional Choreography Biennale, works to foster the development of performing arts in Central and Eastern Europe. It initiates and supports the exchange of knowledge, information, and experience between theatre and dance artists and specialists working in this region. It links artists, curators, and theoreticians from Western and Eastern Europe. EEPAP is supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and the City of Lublin.

Mladinsko Gledališče Ljubljana (Slovenia) was established in 1955 as the first professional theatre for children and youth in Slovenia. In the eighties, Mladinsko was gradually re-structured into a theatre which interdisciplinarily combined borderline theatre research and the thematisation of political subversiveness.

“RE//Dance” – the Regional Choreography Biennale is organised with the support of the Czech Centre Bucharest and the Polish Institute in Bucharest and in partnership with Hotel Duke.
Special thanks to the Excelsior Theatre.

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