“Collective Cadence” investigates the complex dynamics between mass dances, individual expression, and control systems. The project emphasizes rhythm’s crucial role in initiating, disseminating, and encapsulating collective desires and fears. Intertwining elements of history, anthropology, ethnomusicology, and AI co-creation, it scrutinizes how performing rhythm functions as a societal response mechanism, supporting, evading, or combating dominant structures. The project builds on Simona Deaconescu’s current research of mysterious mass dance events that appear in liminal periods and Grigore Burloiu’s research in interactive music and rhythm generation. Grigore and Simona will explore rhythms and states of contagion, trance, decisiveness, and ecstasy by designing a playful system staged as a lecture performance – an AI-mediated dialogue with the audience.
Simona Deaconescu
Simona Deaconescu is a Romanian choreographer and filmmaker working across genres and formats. She examines social constructs, at the border of fiction and objective reality, sometimes with irony and black humor. Her work is research-based, looking for scientific contributions to the field of dance and marginal historical events about resilient bodies. She holds a BA and a MA at the choreography department of the National University of Theatre and Film in Bucharest and a BA in Film Directing at the Media University in Bucharest. In 2022 she was nominated as an Associated Artist with the National Centre for Dance in Bucharest, a Forecast Mentee, and Aerowaves Twenty22 Artist. She is the artistic director and co-founder of Tangaj Collective and Bucharest International Dance Film Festival. Her works have been presented internationally, reaching audiences from Europe, North and South America, and Southern Africa.
Link: https://www.tangajdance.com/
Grigore Burloiu
Grigore Burloiu is a Lecturer at the National University of Theatre and Film in Bucharest where he teaches Creative Coding, Interactive Music Systems, and Game Development. Grigore develops systems for expressive accompaniment and for interactivity with AI in art, with his main research project implementing dynamic timing and timbre adjustment into an expressive drum machine. He has also done practice-led research into motion and gesture sonification for interactive performance. His artistic collaborations have been presented internationally in venues such as Ars Electronica (AT), Vivid Festival (AU), Fete des Lumieres (FR), Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space (CZ).
Link: https://rvirmoors.github.io/work/
MODINA Residency
The 8-week MODINA residency for the development of this project will take place at Trafó, Budapest, between 11/3/2024 and 5/5/2024. It will culminate with an artist talk and a public showing (dates to be defined).