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Bucharest Dance Hack 2025 is taking place between 7-11th April at Cinetic – the International Center for Research and Education in Innovative and Creative Technologies.
The BCDH2025 participants are 5 artists selected through an open call – Dan Xu (NL), Denis Bolborea (RO)Emmanuel Ndefo (FR), Olga Uzikaeva (RS), Yurika Yamamoto (DE).
On this occasion Developing Art is collaborating with Marginal, a non profit organisation dedicated to transdisciplinary art and science approaches.
BCDH 2025 technologies, approaches and live feeds will be shared on Developing Art’s communication platforms.
Developing Art (DA) is a cultural organisation based in Bucharest, Romania. Since 2017 it has developed a large number of interdisciplinary projects in contemporary dance, mixed media, education and research, and visual arts.
DA’s co-founders and members are active in the contemporary arts scene, working both nationally and internationally. DA’s expertise with creating and successfully implementing publicly funded projects, as well as its members’ experience have led to a natural interest in growing communities and networks around their main artistic priorities.
With projects varying from dance performances to photo exhibitions, from installations to dance therapy workshops and from book launches to artistic residencies, DA acts like an umbrella association and, especially in the last years, has imagined programs that bring together artists from various other disciplines. The organisation aims to develop good practices in the artistic work processes, to merge artistic and non artistic areas, to facilitate and to improve the relation between artists and public and to create programs that involve different communities/audiences.
Through its educational programs, artistic collaborations and interdisciplinary exchanges, DA encourages experimental and courageous approaches, supports research and reflection, contributes to the professional development of artists and, in general, to the visibility of art and culture in national and international contexts.
Dan Xu is a creative researcher and new media artist from China and based in the Netherlands. Her work often explores creative possibilities of emerging digital technologies for expression and communication, as well as how they shape and mediate our embodied and social realities. In practice, she creates interactive installations and participatory performances through the medium of code, sound, movement and text, where the active participation of the audience is integral.
Currently, Dan is completing her PhD at Leiden University. Her research focuses on developing a relational approach (and a practical tool) to deepen the understanding of interactions in interactive art and inspire the creation of new interactive dialogues.
Website
Denis Bolborea is a performer, choreographer, musician, and sound designer, exploring the relationship between body, voice, and technology. Blending contemporary dance with urban influences and live looping, Denis creates performative universes where artistic languages organically complement each other. As a vocal soloist and beatboxer, he develops his independent project, KABLAT, where he experiments with live looping, digital voice manipulation, and interactive concert formats. He is co-founder of Indie Box, contributing to innovative projects such as Ear to Bucharest, Singing Bodies Trilogy, and Mindmoving. For ten years, he was a member of the a cappella group Blue Noise, collaborating with renowned artists. His most recent project, Marsdelux, explores the boundaries between jazz, improvisation, and electronic music.
Emmanuel Ndefo is a dancer and researcher who uses his body as a tool for his creative process, to imagine how performance can contribute to wider contemporary conversations. He explores the broad metaphor of "Hacking", conceiving the human body as a network and our experiences as data. Using performance, Ndefo searches for vulnerabilities within a human-network, and reveals to us spaces of free creation, complete devotion, and new discoveries. Although he draws inspiration from a wide range of forms and practices, the core of his work is rooted in dance, performance and installation. He combines his formal training in dance research with knowledge gained from practicing various traditional African rituals and dances, as well as urban dance styles such as hip-hop, krump and house dance.
Olga Uzikaeva is a Belgrade-based contemporary dance artist, choreographer, and art curator working at the intersection of dance, theatre, and technology. She frequently collaborates across disciplines, exploring instant composition—choreography that unfolds in the present moment. Olga’s creative practice delves into the intimate connection between mind and body, emphasizing intuition as a driving force in her work.
Electronic music is a huge passion of hers. While she has occasionally DJed, she also dreams of learning to produce electronic music that inspires people to move.
Instagram
Links to Olga’s work
Yurika S. Yamamoto is a Japanese-German dance maker and performer currently based in Berlin. In her artistic work she is interested in intersectional approaches and is moving as a performance artist among visual arts, music and technology. Her work attempts to identify given her multicultural background, the stereotypes embedded in her upbringing and socio-cultural environment. Scrutinizing stigmatized figures in their codes of gestures, movements and usage of voice. Next to this as a motion-capture dancer and 3D scan model she deals with the topic of body politics in the work with virtual spaces. Reproducing and deconstructing given structures, attempting to enable the performer. In her movements she embodies sensations of hiding and revealing, being inspired and drawing strength from nature, embracing disruption, dividing space and time.
Mentor in dance and choreography
Andreea Novac is a choreographer and performer based in Bucharest, Romania. Born in 1981, she
graduated Psychology (BA) and Choreography (BA, MA, PhD) at National University of Theatre and Film,
Bucharest. She started making her own work in 2008 and some of her performances were presented in
various national and international contexts. Participates regularly in dance, research, composition, and
improvisation workshops in Europe. Artistic residencies in Great Britain, Estonia, Netherlands, Italy,
Hungary, Luxembourg, France, Ireland and Romania. Received a series of scholarships in Italy and
Germany and several awards for her work/contribution to the development of contemporary dance in
Romania. She is the co - founder of Developing Art Association and worked as an artistic consultant
within National Dance Centre Bucharest, co-curated Bucharest International Dance Film Festival in 2020
and was the artistic director of Caleido Festival in 2020, 2021, 2023. Since 2022 she is an associated
artist at Areal – space for choreographic development. Regularly teaches classes for professional and
amateur dancers and works in theatre and film.
Movement Artist and Dance Therapist. My interests lie at the intersection between art, science, anthropology and therapy
Irina Marinescu fell in love with contemporary dance in 2009. Since then, she has participated in contemporary dance workshops, Feldenkrais, Viewpoints, Axis Syllabus, Das Theater Feedback Method, Contact improvisation, Gaga, dance and film production workshops with Romanian and foreign professionals.
She has worked for The National Dance Center Bucharest and participated at the Cultural Management Academy 2019, is a founder of the UnShame Dance platform, cofounder of the cultural NGO Developing Art and currently she is an independent artist and cultural manager. She wants to offer new perspectives of the world and its stories through various media and languages – be it dance, new media, stand up comedy. Her interests also lie at the intersection between art and therapy, art and science and art and anthropology. She collaborates with artists from various backgrounds to create creative and development contexts where authentic connections, experiment and emotions are the main ingredients.
From 2019 she started doing Stand-up Comedy and from 2022 she has started a long term training specialization on dance-movement-therapy.
demarinescu.com
Producer
Laura is an independent producer based in Bucharest (RO). She has been working for cultural projects for 10 years, and in the performing arts field since 2016. She has produced and coordinated contemporary dance performances, theatre performances and interdisciplinary projects as well as cultural events, both in the public sector, and in the independent one.
In 2023 she received the award for the contribution brought to the development of the contemporary dance from the National Center for Dance Bucharest.
She is interested in how a performance reflects the society's social constructs and daily life, and she is fond of documentary performances as a way of involving the communities in creative processes. She advocates for better work conditions for the cultural workers and non-hierarchical work dynamics.
Since 2021 she is a member of PAMPA, an international network for producers, agents, and managers in performing arts, based in Europe.
Ștefan Damian is a sound-designer / composer / interaction designer based in Bucharest, Romania.
His artistic exploration revolves around sonic interaction design, sound spatialization, sound synthesis / transformation algorithms and the artistic and social contexts in which they can coexist, in a highly expressive way.
Listener of hip-hop, metal, jazz, funk, fusion, electronic and electroacoustic music. Interested in advertising, bachelor in cinema and media (UNATC Bucharest), master in sonic arts (Queen's University Belfast) and PhD student in performing arts (UNATC Bucharest).
He has been working as a producer, composer, sound engineer, sound designer and interaction designer for a varied range of musical, advertising, film and new media productions, often trying to find a common ground where all these different backgrounds and interests can coexist.
When he is not playing with sounds, he teaches sound design at UNATC.
Artists, coders, designers, musicians, dancers, new circus performers, choreographers, people working at the cutting edge of art and technology, a fabulous opportunity for transdisciplinary collaborative work is about to open up: Bucharest Dance Hack 2025!
In preparation for the event that will take place in Bucharest, capital of Romania, we are announcing an open call for participants. Between April 7-11, 2025, we aim to bring together artists and new media enthusiasts committed to working towards ways of blending the moving human body and technology, into an innovative framework, supported by experienced mentors.
The call for participants goes live on the 29th of November and will be open until the 31st of December 2024, at 23:59 (EET). All you need to do is fill in this application form, upload a CV and a letter of intent (we’re happy to receive this as a video or audio recording), and have a working Google account for easy attachment management. The selection process will last throughout the month of January, and results will be announced by email, by Mid-February 2025.
Bucharest Dance Hack is also striving to be an accessible and inclusive event, so parents intending to travel with children will be accommodated. Applicants with special needs or care responsibilities are also welcome, and we will do our best to provide the required resources for their attendance.
Selected participants will receive a fee and per-diems, as well as having their travel expenses reimbursed. However, as part of our commitment to sustainability in the environment, we only accept slow travel plans – no planes!
Bucharest Dance Hack is the third such event being organized, as part of a larger project, realized as a partnership between TaikaBox (Finland), Central Europe Dance Theatre (Hungary) and Developing Art (Romania) and co-founded by the EU. The first two stages of the EU Dance Hack project took place in Oulu (Finland) in May 2024 and Budapest (Hungary) in November 2024.
Each of these events have been dedicated to a certain amount of spontaneity in communication and collaboration, and we encourage interested participants to apply with an open mind and an interest in developing new points of contact and methodologies, instead of bringing pre-existing ideas and projects to the table. Bucharest Dance Hack is about coloring outside the lines, experimenting, and finding novel ideas, rather than completing a puzzle. Bring your curiosity and let’s collectively explore scenarios for the future.
