McImpuls Tanz or nothing to eXplore

What does it mean to do a festival of contemporary art in 2011? And what does it mean to do a festival of contemporary dance in the city of Bucharest in 2011? What does it mean to be involved in contemporary arts in general? Those questions seem of no concern for eXplore Dance Festival that at least for the past editions was trying to produce a minimal (even if banal) text that proposed a position in the world of spectacle.

This year we get directly names. The only concern of the festival seems to be to bring us “world-known artists” from the much larger and more successful Festival Impuls Tanz Vienna. We even have a “coaching” project, scholarships and an “8:tension” like category for “emerging artists” disguised as a competition named “Prix Jardin d’Europe” (which includes, of course, many participants in the 8:tension program).The self-colonizing at it’s purest! The local context with its issues and realities is of no interest at all. We must only feel very happy to see the same “world-known artists” that we saw this year in Vienna and Berlin. You know….”it’s good for the audience”…

The periphery does not produce discourse. It only integrates the already produced discourses and names by its bigger and stronger partner and reproduces it in its own territory with no critical distance whatsoever. The success model must be reproduced (in a minor key of course) regardless of any other imperatives of the moment in hope that we might be successful as well if we only follow closely the receipt of our bigger brothers. Nothing should interrupt this logic not even a proposed protest by fellow artists to address the disastrous situation in which the Ministry of Culture keeps the National Center of Dance Bucharest and the loss of the only space available for the dance community.

Solidarity with your local context must come only when you need financing for your own project! The march towards becoming a local branch of Impuls Tanz must continue without any disturbances in a conformist and provincial manner that will secure our modest place inside the global “network”. This (lack of) attitude stands in deep opposition from that of the local dance community that over the past ten years has been promoting a critical stance towards their own art form and towards the politics involved in it.

Together with the loss of the venue of CNDB, 2011 begins to look like the year when Romanian contemporary dance steps back into it’s ‘90s “pre-thinking” condition.2011 - not much left to eXplore!

The Romanian Presidential Candidate