BPM - Beats per Millennium
solo performance, 40 min, 2024
BLOT - Body Line of Thought
performance, 42 min, 2022
ABOUT
BPM–Beats per Millennium is a solo performance shaped by the stories of people who experienced Romania’s party and clubbing scenes from the last decades—an exploration of dance as atmosphere, pulse, and collective residue. Rather than retelling history through facts, the performance evokes a sensory experience, guided by bodily sequences that express tension, release, and resistance.
The work unfolds through a constantly evolving bodily dramaturgy, where the dancer’s body becomes a living space, absorbing and transforming the echoes of dance floors from the past and present. Her movements emerge as traces of club dances reimagined, distorted, and reshaped into new expressions that flicker between decades, styles, and emotional states.
For the choreographer, the dance floor becomes a meeting ground, a place for exchanging experiences and breaking down barriers, where communities naturally take shape. The body acts simultaneously as a receptor and an amplifier, sensing, generating, and transforming the energies that reshape identity and nurture a deep sense of belonging.
CREDITS
choreography and performance Simona Dabija
original music Vlaicu Golcea
dramaturgical support Andreea Novac
researchers Ionuț Dulămiță, Bogdan Iancu
producer Simona Deaconescu
light design Marius Costache, Dragoș Mărgineanu
project assistant Georgia Elza Măciuceanu
based on research into body atmospheres within Eastern European clubbing culture and shaped by the stories of twelve people who danced through the shifting landscapes of Romania between 1960 and 2024: Ciprian State, Valeriu Cătălineanu, Ioan Big, Paul Breazu, Paula Dunker, Sorin Lupașcu, Bianca Păsărea, Florin Dumitrescu, Daria Cristea, Cristi Kuszai, Cosima Opârțan
partners The National Center for Dance in Bucharest, Expirat Club
The show was created as part of the project RHYTHMS AND CROWDS, a cultural project produced by the Tangaj Collective Association and supported by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund of Romania — AFCN. The project does not necessarily represent the position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN is not responsible for the project’s content or how the project results can be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the beneficiary of the financing.