– a creation by AREAL collective

In Search Of The Lost Body is an artistic project in which we set out on a cathartic journey starting from the archive of the body. We remembered that vision and words are only fragile fragments of truth, illusions of temporary knowledge. At the beginning, each of us led a rehearsal session, we got in touch with each other’s practices, we improvised, we asked questions and we became sculptures. Looking at the others, we unconsciously assimilated everyone’s personal material. Through this “flash of proposals”, we met a “haiku body”-full of questions. We practiced Butoh at midnight among the sculptures and danced with the map of the visible / invisible marks in us. Each body means several bodies and stories crystallized at once into discontinuous structures. This is what our show will look like: like the crystals and corals that cry out for their future. In the new AREAL production, we mold the present and invite people to join us. (Alexandra, Cristina, Cosmin & Valentina).

The show is co-produced with the George Apostu Culture Center in Bacău and presented in the program “AREAL space for cultural development, cultural program” co-financed by the National Cultural Fund Administration.

with:
Alexandra Bălășoiu, Cristina Lilinefeld
Cosmin Manolescu, Valentina De Piante

“A sensorial performance in which body memory and inner memory respond to stimuli. The meeting of the 4 choreographers gave strength to this show, created the context of an idea conveyed in several tones. As a spectator, the atmosphere disturbs you, attracts you or sometimes makes you you detach yourself from what is happening and take refuge in your own search, you are in a labyrinth of your own quests: you enter / leave spaces with the aim of finding yourself a little more. But you understand that this search, this exploration will last till the end of your life. “

Laura Boitan, AREAL Fellow

“The show, which took place in an apartment with a small audience that loves exeperiment and somewhat familiar with contemporary dance, evoked in my mind the literary salons or music salons of past centuries, which took place in the house of a protagonist.

Review by Liana Tugearu, dance critic https://romanialiterara.com/2021/12/areal-un-nou-spatiu-deschis-dansului-contemporan/

“In Search Of  The Lost Body shows us, for almost two hours, that mirroring through dance mediates transformation. The post-pandemic body is unleashed by shouting after the restrictions that have affected society in the last two years, the poetic scenes of expressionist inspiration from the “leaf room” that take us, through Butoh or Pina Bausch, to the ritual-visceral exercise of Cristina Lilienfeld who fights with a sacred liquid or to the scenes played in a postmodern-ironic key by the “pseudo-Hollywoodians” Cosmin Manolescu and Alexandra Bălășoiu, guided by Valentina De Piante, the relationship between performer and spectator is consolidated by the gradual capitalization of the gaze of the spectator. The audience becomes a witness which produces a symbolic transformation in all those present. ”

Beatrice Lăpădat, theoretician