PSR Performance, Architecture and Landscape Symposium

This Performance Situation Room took place in various periods in various locations:

Bucharest, WASP Working Art Space and Productions - Starting date: 28.06.2019 / End date: 3.07.2019

Brussels, LOCI - 26.11.2019

Tournai - LOCI - 27.11.2019

Louvain-la-Neuve - 28.11.2019

A series of performances about the relationship between performance and architecture.

BUCHAREST

4Culture Association and WASP Studios organized the “Performance, Architecture and Landscape” symposium as part of Performance Situation Room (LLB activity), from June 28 to July 3, 2019, in Bucharest. The event’s program included installations, performances, lectures and presentations delivered by artists and architects from Romania, Austria, France, Belgium and Sweden, at WASP – Working Art Space & Production.

The symposium opened on Friday, June 28, at 19:30, with the performance BETON representation of the two Austrian artists Hygin Delimat and Martyna Lorenc, members of the performing arts company Body Architects. The performance was followed by a dialogue between the two performers and the architect Oana Iacob – Republic of Architects. The topic of the dialogue was the relationship between art, social communities and the public space.

Inspired by the grey-scale vibe that arises in places conditioned by misinterpreted modernism, BETON performance captures the metaphor of concrete blocks. Instead of being an embodiment of the ideal given by the architect and urbanist Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, who laid the foundations for modern architecture and known as Le Corbusier, they are instead a relic of the era of absurdity. It is beton that constraints wishes, dreams and goals, inhibits human interactions and provokes aggression. On the other hand, beton is where urban culture becomes a form of expression and escape, a loud response of the young.

Nominated by danceWEB Vienna, the two artists were attending a creative residence at WASP Working Art Space and Production, between 19 and 29 June, 2019, in order to prepare their performance. 

In the PROXIMITY REMOTE installation presented on June 29, at 19:30, the Romanian visual artist Ciprian Ciuclea addresses to the public two important questions about the activity of Hayabusa 2 Japanese probe and its long journey into the unknown, to explore space. On February 21, 2019, the probe successfully reached the surface of Ryugu asteroid, approximately 290 million kilometers from Earth in order to bring samples of rock to Terra for detailed analysis. The contact with distant worlds is possible today with the help of technology, but even so, they still remain fascinating abstractions. The experiment brings up questions, two of which are addressed by the artist: will we still have the certainty of exploring and using extra-atmospheric space in the general interest of mankind? Will (again) be the scientific curiosity left in the shadow of political interest?

The installation was preceded by an artist talk with Ciprian Ciuclea.

The HEROES WERE PEOPLE JUST LIKE US. From selfie to monument photo exhibition, signed by Iosif Király, was open on Monday, July 1, starting 19:30.The exhibition investigates, through reconstructions and photographic associations, various situations in which citizens of the digital age relate to history and the personalities that have marked it. Artist, architect and educator, Iosif Király lives in Bucharest and works internationally.

On Tuesday, July 2, starting 19:30, the symposium included two lectures delivered by the Belgian artist Micheline Dufet and architect Ilinca Paun Constantinescu, in dialogue with Andreea Căpitănescu, cultural manager and curator of WASP Working Art Space and Production, and architect Emil Ivănescu, president of the Romanian Architects Order – Bucharest Branch.

The evening continued with the Diaphragm Leap!? performance, presented by artists Eva Chariatte and Laura Kirschenbaum. Having started with a research in the studio, the work is focused on the relationship between emotions and their expressions through the body – mainly laughing and crying. This research is activated by a body practice based on the center and a muscle, the diaphragm. The voices of the two protagonists, Laura and Eve, are entering in an interplay between consonances and dissonances. This work is an attempt to communicate without words: between two bodies, between audience members and the dancers, and in the end to possibly share a common experience based on emotions.

The Performance, Architecture and Landscape symposium last day, Wednesday, July 3, included lectures held by the Swedish choreographer Mårten Spångberg, in dialogue with Andreea Căpitănescu and Romanian architects Vladimir Nicula, at WASP, starting 19:30.

Mårten Spångberg is a performance related artist living and working in Stockholm. His interests concern choreography in an expanded field, something that he has approached through experimental practices and creative process in multiplicity of formats and expressions. He has been active on stage as performer and creator since 1994, and since 1999 he has created his own choreographies from solos to larger scale works, which has toured internationally. 

All events had free entrance.

Venue: WASP – Working Art Space and Production – 67 – 93 Ion Minulescu Street, 3rd District, Bucharest.

LOCI/Brussels,Tournai, Louvain La Neuve - Europalia Romania Arts Festival

26.11.2019 - Ergonomica  - performative video and sound installation by Andreea Capitanescu, after talk with Emil Ivanescu at LOCI Brussels.

The concept of the performance installation starts from the lack of physical commitment with the space in an increasingly virtual and mobile society, in which the lack of involvement and interaction between people, can often be the result of insensitive architecture and surroundings.

CREDITS

Concept: Andreea Capitanescu, in collaboration with Ivanescu Emil, photo/video: Claudiu Cobilanschi, Andreea Capitanescu, sound: Maria Balabas, performers: Maria-Elisabeta Trefas, Vlad Benescu, Gabriela Iacob, Elena Copuzeanu, Andreea Capitanescu.

27.11.2019 - Anthropology - performance by Marten Spangberg, after talk with architect Oana Iacob at LOCI Tournai.

Anthropology is the second part of a trilogy addressing relations between dance and ecology. The project researches alternative narratives concerning ecology and its relations to the body, understood as a possible intermediary between modalities of organising life. In what ways can dance function as a laboratory for how we can approach the world differently? 

28.11.2019 - Petrila & Boucle Noir - performance and dialogue with architects Ilina Paun Constantinescu, Micheline Dufert, Olivier Grasser and Vlad Benescu at LOCI Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve.