D-butan-T, the Competition-Festival, the 8th edition

D-butan-T, the Competition-Festival, the 8th edition
Tuesday, 03 October 2023

The Constanta State Theatre is waiting for you from 3-6 October, Studio Stage (Ion Lahovari street, no. 2A) to the Constanta stage of the DbutanT 2023 Festival-Contest, this year's edition being dedicated to young choreographers.

DbutanT is a cultural product designed to act as a search engine for emerging artists. It is the only festival in the country dedicated to young recent theatre graduates, offering real opportunities for employment or collaboration in large-scale projects. Since its first edition, DbutanT has been a launch pad for young talent in the theatre arts, from directors and actors to choreographers, set designers and, recently, playwrights.

The festival is designed so that each year a different category of theatre debutants is targeted. Last year there was an edition dedicated to the debut of scenography, in 2021 - to directing and dramaturgy. In 2020 - the first year in which the Constanta State Theatre became co-producer of this important festival, together with the theatre that initiated it - the "Andrei Mureșanu" Theatre (TAM) in Sf. Gheorghe - the edition was dedicated to the debut in acting.


This year, the DbutanT Festival-Competition will take place between 3-6 October in Constanta and 16-22 October in Sfântu Gheorghe, and the performances, selected by a professional jury chaired by Vava Ștefănescu, will be performed both on the stage of the "Andrei Mureșanu" Theatre in Sfântu Gheorghe and on the stage of the Studio Hall (Lahovari str. 2A) of the Constanta State Theatre.
The participants selected for this year's competition and the performances to be presented are as follows: 

1. Anca Stoica - This is the way to escape... Run! - 3 October, 7:00 PM 

Anca Stoica (1999) is an emerging performer and choreographer interested in the social implications of art, whose language focuses on the grotesque, visceral body and its removal from its ordinary context. 
The performance "This is the way to escape...Run?!" is based on the idea of a personal hell, a universe of nightmares on the borderline between normal and pathological. It explores a body of trauma, with the functions of victim and executioner. A distorted dream rooted in the performative nature of trauma and constituting its inherent paradox: trauma is an event on the borderline between human existence and imagination.


2. Sergiu Diță - MANual - 4 October, 7:00 PM

Sergiu Diță (1999) is an emerging performer and choreographer working in the independent area. Together with Anca Stoica they work as an artistic duo under the name Platforma 13. His artistic practice focuses on the use of pop culture as an element of social criticism; thematically he is interested in investigating gender stereotypes. In her own performances she uses the "manifesto-collage-recitative" technique, which involves critical exposition of the subject, collage of quotes, socio-cultural clichés and text.

MANual is an attack on the representation of masculinity. The performance is configured through the manifest-collage-recitative technique. Five bodies change clothes, identities, become objects, manual tools of striking. An ironic user manual with political elements, on the borderline between ritual and erotic, between freedom and constraint, situated between a locker room and a darkroom in a contradictory state of contemporaneity.

3. Alice Veliche and Alexandru Radu - Red Line - 5 October, 12 PM

Alice Veliche, independent choreographer, tells us that one of her greatest professional achievements is choreographing the 30th edition of the UNITER Gala. Alexandru Radu, independent choreographer, tells us that he likes to experiment, to search, to always focus on the process and on what he can learn from each experience. That is why the performances he has created belong to different choreographic approaches.
"Red Line. Exaggeration, abuse, overuse, underuse, abundance, profligacy, overindulgence, overflow, excess, extremism, prodigality, redundancy, satiety, supplement, overabundance, surplus. Much. Far too much. Far too much too much. EXCESS. Of ego, of art, of shyness, of hate, of power, of thought, of love, of zeal, of dance, of us, of work, of non-dance, of loneliness, of will, of sadness, of laziness, of everything and in everything. We all know it's too much when we cross the red line.


4. Ioana Silvana Neda - Frida Kahlo - October 5, 7:00 PM

Ioana Silvana Neda is a 21-year-old young artist who harmoniously combines her dance education with fearless creativity. The show offers the audience an overview of the biography of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, exposing the artist's mental degradation due to trauma, all through the theatrical-choreographic discovery of pictorial fantasy, supported by the invocation of the plastic universe of surrealism. The focus is on Frida's character, her desire and attempt to overcome her powerlessness and to try to make the most of her life by processing her sufferings and turning them into her main source of inspiration. 


5. Andreea Vălean - Nexus - 6 October, 7:00 PM

Andreea Vălean is a ballerina and contemporary dance performer, member of the Bucharest National Opera Ballet Corps and of the Contemporary Creative Dreamers company. "Nexus" is a journey into the depths of the human being, exploring the heritage of the primordial roots of its nature. Organic bonds, seemingly indestructible relationships, toxic relationships based on the eternal principle of power struggle are depicted.

Thank you and we look forward to seeing you!