“Quartet for a Microphone” is a choreographic and sound installation by Vava Ştefǎnescu – one of most prominent Romanian choreographers, the artistic director of the National Dance Centre in Bucharest. The installation is a life composition, completely dependent on and responsive to the spectators’ reactions, their perception, their attention span and the occasional lapses in it.

Every idea – a starting point of sorts or a number of keywords – comes into conjunction with the movement of sound, with the glance of the audience and this is how other new and unexpected ideas are born. For Vava Stefanescu, the accidental of the presence conditioned by this specific context as well as the attention for perception rituals, constitute constant preoccupations but also serve as fascinations with regard to this “come and go” art phenomenon, suspended somewhere between fiction and reality.

Vava Ştefǎnescu is a choreographer and dancer, living and working in Romania. She is Artistic Director of Centrul National al Dansului (CNDB) – National Dance Center. In 1994, she graduated from the Choreography Department of the National University of Drama and Film in Bucharest and in 2004 obtained the MA in International Artistic Cooperation at Paris 8, UFR Arts. Her performances were presented on national and international stages (London, Leipzig, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Hannover, Paris, Sofia, Poland, USA, Japan…)

Her most recent creations include “After all” (Temps d’Images Cluj, 2011), “Solo On-Line“,“Mioritza“ – choreographic installation, “Ghetto Blaster“,“3 Dances of Beckett”. She creates choreography and performs for theater: “The Forgetting” (G. Banu), “The Jewish Trilogy”, “The Pearl Fishers” (National Opera), “Song of the Songs”, “Julieta” (Viski András), directed or in authorship with Mihai Măniuţiu; “Born for Never” (Viski András).

In 2000, she founded Multi-Art-Dans Centre – MAD, an independent institution for supporting choreographers, dancers and multidisciplinary artistic creation. From 1994 to 2001, Vava Ştefănescu taught contemporary dance at the Choreography High School in Bucharest and was University Assistant at the Choreography Department of the National University of Drama and Film in Bucharest. Currently, she leads workshops of choreographic composition in the framework of festivals, dance companies, universities, artistic residencies in Romania and abroad.