The Scemtovici & Benowitz Gallery is celebrating one year since its opening with a contemporary dance performance.
On Thursday, December 28, at 6 p.m., Răzvan Mazilu and Ștefan Lupu will expand the Pulsatilla exhibition space in a performative dialogue on music by Hiroshi Yoshimura and Harold Budd. Through gesture and movement, the dancers will integrate Daniela Vîrlan’s paintings into their choreography, starting from an idea of cultural manager Raluca Băloiu.
“I have always been inspired, in my art, by the visual arts. When I was a child, I used to paint. My parents took me to painting classes at the Museum of Art Collections and exhibitions. As a teenager, my first choreography was inspired by a work by Rodin. Today, I design my stage costumes and am involved in the concept of scenographic space.
I believe in the dialogue of the arts. We are quite isolated and lonely as artists, and we should visit each other more often. Daniela Vîrlan’s paintings inspired me through the force of fragility, the power given by ineffable grace, emotion, and simplicity. Emotions about fragility and strength as are the dance.” – Răzvan Mazilu.
Event dress code: smart casual
Răzvan Mazilu is a dancer, choreographer, actor, director, and graduate of the Academy of Theater and Film, choreography section. During his career, he received numerous awards, including the UNITER Award for the development of the musical show in Romania (2022), the Award for the contribution made to the construction of contemporary dance awarded by the Bucharest National Dance Center (2019), the Order of Cultural Merit in the rank of Knight awarded by The President of Romania (2004) etc. Since 2001, he has worked as a choreographer and artistic consultant at the Odeon Theater in Bucharest.
Ștefan Lupu, a theater and film actor, dancer, choreographer and director, is a doctoral student at the Faculty of Theater of the National University of Theater and Cinematography “I.L. Caragiale”, Bucharest – Applied Theater Studies section. Among the awards obtained for his artistic activity are the Special Prize for Theater-Dance at the UNITER Gala (2014), the Special Prize of the Jury for the performance “Commediamore” (2010), the Prize for the best dance theater performance “Hail Love”, Bucharest Fringe Festival etc
Daniela Vîrlan is a visual artist and Bucharest National University of Arts, Graphics Department graduate. Taking elements from reality or symbols from universal human consciousness, the artist builds synergistic, symbiotic or antagonistic relationships between the elements that populate her artistic universe. The seemingly spontaneous forms, but with references to elaborate realities, reveal an unpredictable continuum, a flow of surprising associations and juxtapositions: angels, birds, Madonnas, monsters, and figures caught in Brownian motions. She lives and works in Bucharest.
The exhibition, curated by Raluca Ilaria Demetrescu, is open until January 11, 2024.
