MĂDĂLINA DAN (RO)
13.10.2013 / 12:00 – 20:00 / WASP

Foto: Mihai Bodea, Mary Wycherley, Alessio Cavallucci

Framework
I propose a movement marathon, an endurance tour, a frame in which I will try to move for 8 hours. All in a performative installation format, in which the audience can be interactive from time to time. Ar certain hours I will open the frame for sharing, meaning that those who feel kinesthetic can participate and add themselves to the installation. I am interested in what accumulates from the physicality and physical exhaustion, from the exploration and anatomical awareness of the body and their mechanisms. Passing through many registers and qualities of movement, of search engines and different stimuli, physical and psychic, within an aesthetics or outside it, in all of my pre-existent movement  baggage, but also in working with an unspectacular body that is taken aback in search, in confusion and in change, the sincerity of the moment, the pleasure in movement, sharing and kinesthetic empathy and, last but not least, in the celebration of life through body and vitality are some of the ways to explore this installation.

Argument
The experience of the illness I was confronted to lately (Hodgkin lymphoma) has open new and reinvigorating perspectives on the relevance of dance in one’s existence and made me reevaluate some functioning principles. With outmost pathos, of which I am funnily conscious, because just recently I was on the other side of the line, skeptically regarding not only dance, but rather a system, I have become conscious about how lucky I am that I am dancing and that I can get better physically and psychically right at my work place, as one would say. During my treatment with cytostatics I have personally and directly experienced the beneficial effects of movement, although allopathic doctors forbid any physical effort. The term ‘physical effort’ clearly indicates the voids of body education in the medical system. It is so frustrating to discover these limits and that no importance is given to this way of healing that is as natural and therapeutic as possible, but this is another point of discussion. Among all traditional and alternative methods I have tried, from chemotherapy to ayurvedic cures, I have found that I feel better when moving and entertaining an intimate dialogue with my body. Sometimes I forgot how important it is for our bodies to function, because, right, they function for themselves. We have these mechanisms that are so simple, in an organic and interdependent way, yet so complex. I was on the other side, I have confronted my illness and physical pain. When I used to agonize, I promised myself not to forget to cherish my health, not to take things for granted, to try to prolong as much as I can this state of celebration in my body and to make this thing as much as possible for others around me. It was then that I felt a kind of urgency about the things I have to do in life. This way, movement and working with the body have become top priorities. I decided to put the body in motion, to extract my experiences from physicality. I have a body which I want to use in the fullness of its resources, from a physical, psychical, energetic, anatomical, sensorial and emotional point of view, of the stored memory and the experiential potential that it holds, as long as it can be possible.