QUARTET FOR A MICROPHONE / Vava Stefanescu (RO)

A telephone booth pulsating with the energy of the three performers locked inside. A choreographic and sound installation that sets a discourse about confinement, the lack of distance and the relation with the other.

„Quartet… is a „come and go” between fiction and reality, a game about the unrepeatability of existential acts. Every time they find themselves closed up between the four walls of the phone booth, the three dancers reenact a universe of all possibilities. Nothing is fixed; everything is real-time composition. There is a constant tension of powers inside the booth, balancing genders, physical and spiritual force, degrees of endurance to the invading energy of the «look from beyond». A tension whose common denominator is the solidarity in confinement, a tension that goes beyond the glass walls, in the eyes of the viewer, condemned to non-intervention. And the sound slips by us, insidious like a snail…”
Iulia Popovici, Ziua

Quartet for a Microphone is a choreographic and sound installation that sets a discourse about confinement, the lack of distance, the relation with the other and about the idea of being hostages of our own existence. This choreographic installation is a real-time composition; the only continuous reference and support is the visible/audible situation that is constant during the performance’s 60 minutes. Every performed idea – starting-point keywords – come into conjunction with the movement of sound, and with the glance of the audience and this is how other new and unexpected ideas are born. For Vava Stefanescu, the spontaneity of presence conditioned by this very specific context, the attention to rituals of perception, are constant preoccupations but also fascinations about this „come and go” between fiction and reality.

VAVA ŞTEFĂNESCU
is a choreographer and dancer, living and working in Romania. She is Director of the National Dance Center of Bucharest (CNDB). In 1994, she graduated from the Dance Department of the National University of Drama and Film Bucharest and in 2004 the MA in International Artistic Cooperation at Paris 8, UFR Arts. Her performances were presented on national and international stages. Her most recent creations are Swing, Occupy Vava, After all (Temps d’Images Cluj, 2011), Solo On-Line, Mioritza– choreographic installation, Getto Blaster, 3 dances of Beckett. She creates choreography and performs for theater: The Forgetting(G. Banu), the Jewish Trilogy, Perls Fishers(National Opera), Song of the Songs, Julieta (Viski András), directed or in authorship with Mihai Măniuţiu; Born for never(Viski András).
In 2000, she founded Multi-Art-Dans Centre – MAD, an independent institution for supporting choreographers and dancers and multidisciplinary artistic creation. Currently she leads workshops of choreographic composition in the framework of festivals, dance companies, universities, artistic residencies, in Romania and abroad.

With a discography consisting of more than 30 titles released in Romania and abroad, added to VLAICU GOLCEA activates in various syncretic art domains: music for theater, contemporary dance and film (feature film, short film and documentary), multimedia instalations and performances. Initiator of the projects Spitalulamorului.ro, Aievea, East Village, Bucharest AV, MIDI Overdose, Jazz eScape, he collaborated with numerous musicians belonging to different musical styles. His music was heard in more than 50 theater plays and he was rewarded in 2009 with the Uniter prize for theater music. Together with Romanian and foreign artists he also composed and performed for contemporary dance performances.

MIHAELA DANCS
graduated from the Dentistry College (Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest) in 1999. Since 2004 she has taken part in workshops coached among others by Pascal Allio, Florin Fieroiu, Cosmin Manolescu, Eduard Gabia, Rui Catalao, Allyson Green, David Zambrano, Martin Kilvady, KJ Holmes, Ted Stoffer, Martin Sonderkamp, DD Dorvillier, Risa Steinberg, Georg Blaschke, Milton Myers, Katheleen Hermesdorf, Brynjar Bandlien. She collaborates with several choreographers: Allyson Green, Rui Catalao, Maria Baroncea & Eduard Gabia, Bernard Baumgarten, Vava Ştefănescu, Mădălina Dan. In 2006 she created and performed her first solo, Reprogramare, part of Performing the Body project (Artlink), she works as co-author with Rui Catalao for Coada Şoricelului(2007) and Follow that summer (2008). In October 2009, Follow that summerwas be presented at The Balkan Dance Platform (Novi Sad). In March 2009 she presented her second solo, Lulu’s room, at Europe in Motion Festival (Bucharest), CNDB. She is with Carmen Coţofană the co-author of First Steps.

FARID FAIRUZ
was born in Beirut to a Lebanese mother and a Jewish father. During his life he was marked by the troubling love story between his parents who lived clandestinely for 10 years always migrating between Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. After their tragic disappearance during the Beirut war he was adopted by two Bedouins who fed him camel milk and educated him according to their beliefs. Fairuz had a different behavior than the other children of his age and he proved to be extremely sensitive. The destiny smiled upon him when, aged 11, he was adopted by a rich Jordanian family which treated his studies with great care. Thus Farid Fairuz ended up studying the music of Arab peoples, oriental dance, classic and contemporary dance, and then he created performances and danced for a few years in Europe and United States of America being regarded as a curiosity.

CARMEN COŢOFANĂ
graduated from the Octavian Stroia Choreography Highschool and the Choreography Department of the National University of Drama and Film in Bucharest. She participated in workshops with Pal Frenak, Karine Saporta, Donna Uchizono, Mark Tompkins, Carol Brawn, David Zambrano, Vera Mantero, Xavier le Roy. She collaborated with choreographers Sorana Badea, Mihai Mihalcea, Valentina de Piante, Charles Lineham, Florin Fieroiu, Ioana Macarie, Cătălina Gubandru, Vava Ştefănescu, Eduard Gabia, Mădălina Dan, and theatre directors Gianina Cărbunariu, Andreea Vălean, Alexandru Dabija, Radu Nica. Personal creations: Beings Of Hands; Take Five; Step Forward; Free Mesh; Recycle Me and co-author for First Steps, premiered at Explore Dance Festival (Bucharest), in October 2009. She recently was part of the Venice Biennale team of performers led by Alexandra Pirici and Manuel Pelmus.

Other performances by Vava Ştefanescu:
Swing(2013), Occupy Vava (2012), After All(2011), Deliruri(2011)

Premiere: 2008, National Contemporary Art Muzeum (MNAC)