Dance workshop with Simona Dabija, open level for adults

The workshop draws on movement patterns found in social and club dancing, exploring the relationship between the body, form, and rhythm. We will explore familiar dance forms and gradually reshape them, investigating how rhythm can be distributed across different layers of the body. Sound will be approached as a living vibration, while the body becomes a space that receives, transmits, and amplifies it.

Through guided improvisation and accumulation-based practices, participants will explore how rhythm can be initiated from one body part and progressively spread through the body, creating connections between different layers of movement. We will work with tools such as repetition, movement deconstruction, and speed variations, exploring different physical states and atmospheres inspired by the experience of the dance floor.

Conceived as an extension of the performance “BPM-Beats per Millennium”, the workshop offers a practical framework in which participants can directly engage with the choreographic principles and creative processes that informed the work.

Simona Dabija

Romanian dance artist Simona Dabija has developed a practice focused on a hybrid embodiment where mechanical and organic movement coexist. Her dance challenges perceptions of the human form, by deconstructing the movement through rhythm and speed. She holds BA and MA degrees in Choreography from UNATC Bucharest. She remains the main collaborator of choreographer Simona Deaconescu and a core member of Tangaj Collective, performing and teaching within the company for the past 10 years. In parallel, she has been developing projects with independent spaces and collectives as well as state institutions in Bucharest, such as Linotip, /SAC, Delazero, CNDB, Teatrelli, Odeon Theatre, Masca Theatre.

In 2024, she premiered her first solo piece, “BPM-Beats per Millennium”, part of the Iridescent Festival at CNDB, and co-created the performative installation “Original Spaces/Legalized Gestures”, together with choreographer Ioana Marchidan.

In 2026, Simona was selected to be part of Aerowaves Twenty26 with her solo creation. In the same year, she was part of the Moving Balkans coproduction programme “Duets Across Borders”, co-creating a new work alongside Bulgarian choreographer Deyan Georgiev. She received the CNDB Award in 2020 for her contribution to the growth of contemporary dance in Romania.

This workshop is part of “Extended Bodies. Performative Routes”, a cultural project co-financed by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. The project does not necessarily represent the official position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN shall not be held liable for the program’s content or any use to which the program outcome might be put. These are the sole responsibility of the beneficiary of the funding.

The project was carried out with the support of Cluj-Napoca City Hall and the Local Council.