(Romania / Canada )

This guest performance is made possible with the financial support of the National Culture Fund, “Programme for recovery and development of private cultural organizations” and the Ministry of Culture of Bulgaria. BLOT – Body Line of thought is part of “Retrocontrol – Performative Documentaries on the Move,” a touring project co-financed by AFCN – The Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN is not responsible for the content of the project or how the results of the project may be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the beneficiary of the funding.

The first few minutes of this performance make the audience believe that the focus is entirely on the human body, interpreting the similarities between human beings and animals. However, “BLOT – Body Line of Thought” is not devoted to the body, but to each one of us, as a unique microbial fingerprint and a system of mutually reinforced bacteria, both strong and fragile. Designed as a hybrid performance, a conference, and a choreographic show mix, the performance takes us through the smell, reproduction, exercise, immunity and provokes us with a new concept about what we might call ‘identity’.

Simona Deaconescu is a Romanian choreographer and filmmaker working across genres and formats. Her work is research-based, looking for scientific contributions to the field of dance and marginal historical events about resilient and political 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. Simona Deaconescu is the founder of Tangaj Collective and the Bucharest International Dance Film Festival. 

In 2022 she was nominated as an Aerowaves Artist, an Associated Artist with the National Centre for Dance in Bucharest, and a Forecast Mentee, under the guidance of French choreographer Mathilde Monnier. Her works have been selected and presented in festivals and conventional stages, unconventional spaces, cinemas, galleries and museums, and architectural sites, reaching audiences from Europe, Canada, the USA, and, more recently, Africa.

Vanessa Goodman, the artistic director and choreographer of “Action at a Distance” dance society, respectfully acknowledges that she lives and works on the ancestral and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations. Vanessa is attracted to art that has a weight and meaning beyond the purely aesthetic and uses her choreography as an opportunity to explore the human condition. 

She holds a BFA from “Simon Fraser” University (SFU) and has been commissioned by Alexis Fletcher, Springboard Dansé Montréal, Votive Dance, Lamon Dance, Modus Operandi, and The SFU rep class. In 2013, she received the Iris Garland Choreographer Award from The Dance Centre and participated in their inaugural “Yulanda M. Faris” Program. Recently, Vanessa presented work and was a facilitator for Trinity Laban’s 2020 Co-Lab Project (London). She has been presented locally, nationally and internationally in Canada, The USA, Europe, the UK and South America.

Produced by Tangaj Collective, Action at a Distance, The National Center for Dance in Bucharest  / co-financed by The Administration of the National Cultural Fund, Canada Council for the Arts / supported by Cultivamos Cultura, Biofriction, Left of Main, Plastic Orchid Factory.