Performing the under-performed. Performing arts spaces in Romania — RESHAPE Intensive Cluj
Channel: HowlRound Theatre Commons
Date: 2019-11-13

Performing the under-performed. Performing arts spaces in Romania

Tuesday 12 November 2019
10:00 EET (Cluj, UTC +2) / 09:00 CET (Berlin, UTC +1) / 08:00 GMT (London, UTC +0) / 3 a.m. EST (New York, UTC -5).

A brief radiography of the performing arts scene in Romania, with a focus on the independent art scene: its fragile structures, their restless struggle to establish and maintain spaces for creation and production and their taste for socially and politically engaged practice.

Miki Braniște is a cultural manager and curator for interdisciplinary projects, she was the director of the TEMPS D'IMAGES festival in Cluj from 2008 to 2017. She actively participated in the development of the contemporary art space The Paintbrush Factory and is currently curator for the performing arts program for this space. In November 2015 she received the title of `Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres` from the French Ministry of Culture for her activity to support the independent performing arts sector in Romania.

Kinga Kelemen is a cultural manager with expertise in performing arts management, both in state theatre structures and independent companies in Romania. She worked as a dramaturg, literary advisor, marketing manager, PR manager, she coordinated international theatre festivals and produced independent theatre/dance productions which toured widely nationally and internationally. She is a founding partner of GroundFloor Group, an NGO from Cluj and organized tours both nationally and internationally responding to invitations of theatre and dance festivals across Europe and Romania.

Petro Ionescu is a Romanian playwright. At Reactor de Creație și Experiment in Cluj-Napoca she works as an artist, but also as a staff member, being involved in project coordination and other administrative tasks. As an artist, the theater performances that she works for focus on social issues like: unemployment, social invisibility, forced evictions and homelessness, gender inequality or political context.

Vava Ștefănescu is a Romanian choreographer with a rich artistic career. Since 2000, she has been involved in cultural management either as an initiator and director of the MAD Center (2000-2003) or as artistic director of the National Dance Center of Bucharest (2006-2013). From 2014 until now he is the manager of the latter public institution.

RESHAPE presented the Intensive Cluj meeting livestreaming from Cluj, Romania on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv Tuesday 12 November and Thursday 14 November 2019.

Intensive Cluj is a meeting of art practitioners interested in creating alternative organizational models for the arts.

It takes place in the framework of RESHAPE, a research and development project that brings together artists and art workers from Europe and the South Mediterranean to jointly imagine how arts will be created, accessed and experienced in the future. RESHAPE relies on the collective intelligence and creativity of the cultural workers on the ground. A bottom-up process, it gathers artists and activists who already have experience and expertise in imagining alternative practices and transforming them into concrete actions and policy recommendations.

Intensive Cluj is the first occasion when art workers who, until now, have been working in smaller groups and specific topics, come together to cross and share their findings, reflections, ideas and inspirations. It will provide a first glimpse of where this research might lead us to.

Moreover, Intensive Cluj connects the RESHAPE research to the Romanian artist and activist initiatives, sparkling new conversations and ideas.

Intensive Cluj is also an opportunity to infuse the reflection on alternative models in the arts sector with ideas and practices from broader societal debates, movements and tendencies.

Finally, Intensive Cluj is an open invitation for sharing and reflecting: how can we make sure that future artistic practices are better adjusted to the values of the sector and the evolution of society? There are no ready-made solutions and the future is ours to imagine!