UP STAIRS
UP STAIRS is a project initiated by Alina Ușurelu and Irina Marinescu, produced by PETEC - Asociația pentru Teatru și Carte and financed by the Ministry of Culture, that proposes a discussion about the interaction between permanent (architectural) and ephemeral (the body) and, at the same time, wants to provoke an extensive reflection on the influences that spaces have on our body and psyche.
Structured on three dimensions (artistic, educational and research), UP STAIRS attempts to discover new theoretical and practical performative ways to reactivate, reinterpret and reposition the individual’s internal architecture in relation to the external one. This is how UP STAIRS creates a new, alternative, educational context, where the relation between space – body is approached in an interdisciplinary way – from the perspective of contemporary dance, visual arts, architecture and psychology – by stimulating the collaboration between different arts and disciplines and by encouraging creativity.
UP STAIRS aims at finding new ways of interacting with personal and public spaces and responding to their architectural particularities by using the visual language as a means and a frame for integrating internal and external experiences.
UP STAIRS means:
+ Experimental dance short film - 6 performers, 5 concept staircases with particular histories, somatic movement and experiment
+ VOLUME. Body in space – intensive, interdisciplinary, theoretical and creativity workshop
+ The making of – research and documentation program
+ UP STAIRS Meetings / Debates
UP STAIRS is an experimental dance short film that uses the staircase as a pretext to perform and as a symbol of the utilitarian/public space that is reactivated, reinterpreted and recreated through the body, senses and personal filters interaction.
The film metaphoric composition traces how space is deconstructed and reconstructed at the meeting place with the body – from dark to light, from monument to ruin, from green, alive, natural, to technology - with the involvement of six performers from the contemporary dance community in Romania.
By means of sensory and kinetic interaction, five performers connect with one space/staircase, following a predefined trajectory: confinement staircase – monumental staircase – ruin staircase – staircase claimed by nature – technology staircase.
The sixth performer brings together the five spaces/staircases to punctuate the different and diverse ways to understand and connect to the (im/permanent) constructed environment. This way, the latter creates a unifier journey that exposes different reactions and interpretations of the spatial relation.
This is how UP STAIRS achieves a new visual approach that responds to the need to understand space, body and the relation between the two in a different and qualitative manner.
List of performers, creators of the spaces:
Catrinel Catană - the creator of the unifying path
Irina Strungăreanu - the creator of the cloister stairs
Momo Sanno - the creator of the monument stairs
Istvan Teglas - the creator of the ruin stairs
Cristina Lilienfeld - the creator of the nature stairs
Carmen Coțofană - creator of technology stairs
An idea by Alina Usurelu and Irina Marinescu
Image: Alina Ușurelu și Vlad Dumitrescu
Edit: Cristian Vieriu
Soundtrack: Florin Ciocan
Photographer: Lavinia Pollak
Interviews: Alina Ușurelu și Corina Cimpoieru
Thanks to: Muzeul Pompierilor- Foișorul de Foc, Muzeul Municipiului București - Palatul Șuțu,
România Film - Teatrul de Vara Capitol și Magazinului Victoria for support and access to their spaces.
