What's Next? E-Motional Bodies | space for care and solidarity with Ukrainian people
Schedule
Wed Apr 24 2024 at 06:00 pm to 09:00 pm
Location
AREAL spațiu pentru dezvoltare coregrafică | Bucharest, BU
What’s Next? E-Motional Bodies - space for care and solidarity with Ukrainian people - a dance & conversation workshop led by Cosmin ManolescuApril 24, 2024 | 18:00–21:00
Areal | space for choreographic development
2 Anastasie Simu st., apt. 6, 3rd floor
In time of wars and conflicts, culture, solidarity, care and well-being are essential to be able to move forward and create a better future for humanity. Starting with April 2024, Cosmin Manolescu and Gabriela Tudor Foundation aim to create at AREAL an open space for dialogue and cultural exchange where new formats of encounters between artists and public will be tested and a series of new residencies, such as the Antonin Artaud Fellowship (April), Performing Togetherness (May) or Culture Utopias (June).
How do we meet each other nowdays? How do we embrace the present and understand alternative modes of collaboration and sharing practices? What rules, powers and practices affect the body, and which is the degree of awareness of these processes? How do we move towards collaboration, cooperation and generative, generous practices to offer care and well-being around us?
In connection with the presence of two Ukranian artists in Bucharest in a residency in April 2024 – Nana Biakova, choreographer, and Evgeniya Melkonyan, singer & performer, Cosmin Manolescu will moderate a 3-hour workshop-discussion where artists and Ukranian refugees in Bucharest will meet, talk and dance together.
During the workshop, participants will be invited to discover and explore the e-motional body & heart-dance practice developed by Cosmin Manolescu. The workshop, led in English, will start with a small warm-up session using exercises based on touch and improvisation scores with closed eyes, followed by a massage experience, all aimed at raising a body-awareness-presence feeling. The event will conclude with a free dance session & chat over a cup of tea and a light dinner. Participation is free of charge for people from Ukraine and limited places are available. Registration are open via email [email protected] by April 23.
The event is organised in connexion of the International Day of Dance and the premiere of the performance LOST MOVEMENT, presented by Nana Biakova at Teatrelli/creart on April 29, at 19:00, more information and tickets are available at https://eventbook.ro/theater/bilete-lost-movement?lang=en
This dance workshop-conversation is part of the project “What’s next? Safe cultural multi-spaces for the multidisciplinary reflection of (post)war and (post)crisis European identity”, created in partnership by zusa (Germany), MitOst (Germany), Musiktheatertage Wien (Austria), proto produkciia (Ukraine), Wrocław Institute of Culture (Poland) and Gabriela Tudor Foundation (Romania). Co-funded by the Creative Europe program of the European Union.
Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the European Education and Culture Executive Agency can be held responsible for them.
BIO
Cosmin Manolescu is a designer of performative experiences, community builder and choreographer, artistic director of Serial Paradise Company/ Gabriela Tudor Foundation based in Bucharest (Romania). He deeply believes that contemporary dance is an art form that can positively change lives and bring people together across borders no matter their age, sex or identity.
Cosmin is currently interested in cross-border cultural exchange, coaching people & artists, experiment and artistic innovation, leading a series of international projects, teaching and coaching young people and artists, creating performances that challenge the audience in Romania and abroad.
Since 1997, together with Gabriela Tudor Foundation, he played an important role in the development of contemporary dance in Romania and in the creation of both National Dance Centre Bucharest (2004) and AREAL – space for choreograpic development (2020).
His artistic work was successfully presented in important festivals and venues such as Lyon Dance Biennale, Festival de la Nouvelle Danse d’Uzes, Dance Theater Workshop, PS 122 New Tork, Sushi Theatre San Diego, Enzimi Rome Festival, Dublin Fringe Festival, Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles Paris, Morishita Studio Tokyo, Beirut Street Festival, Dansstationen Malmo, Brakke Grond Amsterdam, BananaFabrik/Choregraphic Dance Center in Luxembourg, Time to Dance festival Riga, Seattle International Dance Festival among others. For his performances and projects Cosmin received several awards in Romania, France and Monaco such as the Nouveau Talent Choreographie awarded by Societe des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques Paris (2005), SOGEDA Awards at Monaco Dance Forum for the project “Don’t Ask the Blond” and the special prize of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund (2017) for 20 years of the activity with Gabriela Tudor Foundation.
In 2009 he was selected one of 12 European dance makers to participate in the Asia-Europe Dance Forum organised by ASEF and Alkantara festival in Lisbon. Following this encounter he started to travel extensively to Asia getting in connection with Asian artists and curators in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, China and India. In 2012 he was awarded with a fellowship by The Saison Foundation in Tokyo to discover and connect with the Japanese dance scene. One year later, in collaboration with Stefania Ferchedau, he developed Eastern Connection, a long-term platform of exchanges and artistic collaboration involving artists, dance writers and producers from Romania and Japan. Part of this exchange platform, in November 2015 he premiered in Bucharest – the kite – a performance in collaboration with Kyoto based choreographer Zan Yamashita and created the movie what is contemporary dance. In September 2015, during a residency in Tokyo and Kinosaki supported by The Saison Foundation, he started to research the kite, as a tool of reflection on the body, contemporary dance and the creative city.
In 2010-2011, he initiated and co-organized Moving Dialogue, a New York-Bucharest dance exchange for emerging artists and dance writers in partnership with Movement Research, Dance Theater Workshop, Romanian Cultural Institute in New York and National Dance Center Bucharest. Between 2011-2015, Cosmin Manolescu was the co-initiator and artistic director of the E-Motional - a European mobility and creative exchange dance led by Gabriela Tudor Foundation with the financial support of the European Union and developed in partnership with key organizations and artists in Latvia, Portugal, Luxemburg, Cyprus, UK, Ireland, Turkey (www.e-motional.eu).
Between July 2012 – November 2014 Cosmin Manolescu was the artistic director of ZonaD laboratory-dance space, regularly teaching dance workshops, developing community projects and working with disabled people, running monthly jam-sessions and presenting regularly dance films. He has a special interest in working with people with physical disabilities, kids and young scholars. In 2014 he developed his e-motional body practice, a holistic approach of the body that includes touch, yoga exercises and sensorial/small motions, sounds and texts that he is currently using in his performances and teaching as well.
Since 2018 he regularly organise E-Motional wandering retreats in India, Portugal and Japan, part of his tree-artistic project Dans-Wanderer (www.danswanderer.ro). Since 2020 he is the co-founder and co-director of AREAL – space for choreographic development where he teaches experimental formats of dance workshops and curates the AREAL residency programs.
contact: [email protected], WhatsUp +40722322366
photo: screenshoot from the E-Motional Europe (2019) by Doina Domenica Cojocaru-Thanasiadis