From December 2022 to February 2024, Indie Box is running the mind-moving project, an approach born out of a desire to reduce disparities between the general public and people with psychiatric diagnoses through contemporary music and dance.

The project is carried out in two psychiatric hospitals with which the project team had positive work experiences in the past: Voila Hospital in Câmpina and Bălăceanca Hospital, aiming within this project to strengthen the position of art therapy as a means of recovery in hospitals, but also better immersion of artists in these environments. 48 workshops and 2 Indie Box productions, improvisational contemporary dance performances adapted to the specific needs of the patients who have become the audience, took place in the hospitals.

The project included a creation residency at the Voila Psychiatric Hospital in Câmpina, during the period 21 – 27 augustThe project’s artistic mission was the production and presentation, in Romania and Norway, of a performative installation illustrating multiple perspectives of mental health disorders and the unseen challenges of those going through these experiences. 2 choreographers, 3 performers, 3 musicians and art therapy workshop facilitators worked together to connect at the deepest level with the proposed theme and find creative ways to take this type of discussion out of the realm of taboo and stigma.

From September to November 2023 intensive rehearsals took place to develop and complete the performance installation. The final result was open to the public for a week in Romania at Residency9 from 22-28 November and in Norway at Trafo Kunsthall from 1-9 December.

Workshops in psychiatric hospitals

Within the framework of the project, 48 therapy workshops based on dance (coordinated by Loredana Larionescu, in collaboration with Cristina Lilienfeld, Denis Bolborea and Alexandra Bălășoiu), painting (coordinated by Oana Dorneanu) and photography (coordinated by Florin Constantin and supervised by “Lumenesc” – Ema Alexandrescu) took place in the two hospitals. Each meeting brought together between 10 and 30 participants.

„Some were known to us from previous projects, they are chronic patients who return frequently. Although more than half a year had passed since the last visit, familiarity with the structures and techniques of dance therapy was still felt in them – for example, they had already acquired the habit of forming a circle, of not judging others, to observe and mirror the movement of others”, declared Loredana Larionescu, the coordinator of dance-therapy workshops.

Oana Dorneanu, coordinator of the art therapy workshops, adds: “Sometimes madness is running away from ourselves, and painting puts us back in touch with our sensations, with our emotions to be able to digest them better, decant them and repress them in a more comfortable way that helps us to complete ourselves.“.

If you were living someone else’s life, do you think your mind would work the same way?

Everything we experience throughout our lives shapes our psychological and biological structures. Each individual develops in a complex web of stimuli and relationships, and the ability of the environment to support or restrict us, to feed us with fear or love, defines our inner mechanisms.

mind-moving invites you to explore this profound question through a unique journey into the complexity of human experiences. The exhibition is built as a space for reflection and mirroring around universal experiences, which can be both normal responses to the surrounding reality and pathological adaptations to difficult life experiences.

Foto credit: Cristina Matei

Foto credit: Cristina Matei

The bodies of the performers obey logics inspired by mental disorders, but the audience is invited to create their own itinerary on this complex journey. Through the interactions with patients from psychiatric hospitals, we had the chance to engage in a dialogue with people with remarkable life stories. We learned to see beyond the labels and understand that anyone can end up on the path of mental fragility.

mind-moving is a call for empathy, understanding and destigmatisation, transforming our view of mental health from labeling to one of exploring authentic human experiences. We challenge you to reflect on the impact of environment and community in shaping our minds, and discover how important artistic expression is in maintaining mental balance.

Events hosted by Rezidența9 in Bucharest and Trafo Kunsthall in Norway.

Rezidența9 Rezidența9 is a contemporary culture center created by BRD – Groupe Société Générale, in a building declared a historical monument on Ion Luca Caragiale street, no. 32.

Currently, together with Fundația9, the Rezidența9 collective develops programs in this space where relevant thinkers and creators meet the public and use arts, culture and dialogue to better understand the world we live in.

We brought a touch of lightness, harmony and playfulness to the Voila Psychiatric Hospital courtyard. Through an improvised performance of contemporary music and dance, we managed to bring a smile to the patients’ faces, who thanked us for this break from routine. Some of them joined us in the dance, and others returned the gift at the end with songs, poems and words spoken into the microphone.
The second performance dedicated to the patients of Voila Psychiatric Hospital started from the artistic process of the [[ship of fools] film. We all embarked on a collective journey where we practiced patience, listening, mirroring, mutual support and freedom of individual expression.
Some of the patients told us how they saw in our dance the strength to move forward, the light that comes at the end of difficult paths and the joy of finding support in others. Many faces lit up and drew strength from our dance, returning smiles, thanks and enthusiastic words. 30 minutes of performance succeeded in altering sad interior landscapes, long stuck in the same inertia. The painful stories of the past were suspended for a while and made room for states and ways of being forgotten.
We welcomed their thanks, their appreciation of our work and their testimonies about how the event made them forget their troubles for a moment, relax and enjoy the evening.

The team

Performer, choreographer and coordinator of the Indie Box activity, AlexandraBuilds projects that emphasize the process and the relationship with the environment from which they are born. She is a co-founding member of the Collective AREA – space for choreographic development, which he directs as co-artistic director alongside Cristina Lilienfeld, Cosmin Manolescu, Valentina de Piante.

ALEXANDRA BĂLĂSOIU is a performer, choreographer and coordinator of the Indie Box activity, a ‘box’ with independent projects artistically led together with Denis Bolborea. Builds projects that emphasize the process and the relationship with the environment from which they are born. Within the Singing Bodies project, he proposes a creative process carried out both in the public space and in the rehearsal room, after which he creates the performative solo “Spooky actions of a spoiled girl”. Alexandra works artistically in relation to mental health, developing a performance for the public space,Spring tides of a good girl”, and a collective dance film [ship of fools] co-created with Virginia Negru, Cătălin Diaconu, Denis Bolborea and Gabriel Durlan. Organizes in collaboration with dance therapist Loredana Larionescu, a series of cultural activities in psychiatric hospitals in Romania: dance-therapy workshops with live music, performances adapted to patients and medical staff, film screenings. Initiates a series of artistic residencies for mothers, which gives birth to the performance installation moving [m]other, a hybrid format, designed for an audience of various ages, developed under the artistic direction of Valentina de Piante.

Co-founding member of the AREAL Collective – space for choreographic development (http://www.arealcolectiv.ro/), which he directs as co-artistic director alongside Cristina Lilienfeld, Cosmin Manolescu, Valentina de Piante. Their first collective creation, “In search of the lost body”, explores an emotional and poetic body in an intimate and unconventional format.

Loredana is currently channeling her energy towards a career at the confluence of fields that have been her passion all her life: psychology, art and movement. She is divided between the coordination of cultural projects and verbal psychotherapy and dance therapy, working in cultural-therapeutic projects that bring joy and mental health to beneficiaries from diverse backgrounds, including disadvantaged ones.

The project was born from the meeting of choreographer Alexandra Bălășoiu with dance therapist Loredana Larionescu. They were joined by manager Emilia Păunescu, who has been working for over 10 years in the innovative and empathetic development of Romanian cultural products.

“I believe in the power of the arts to offer us a field of (re)knowledge and (re)construction. Being able to meet people in their most fragile moments, in their complexity, without fear and without labeling, is the quality that I consider essential in our collective development. For me, mind-moving is this ambitious project that rigorously cultivates these kinds of encounters, that feeds from our entire experience and that I hope takes strong roots in the collective psyche. Mental health is a practice, not a project, and art is one of the best allies we can have along the way.” ( Alexandra Bălășoiu)

Cristina Lilienfeld is a choreographer, performer and psychologist, who for 15 years has been looking for a meeting point of the two disciplines on which her education was based. Temele recurente care apar în procesele sale de cercetare coregrafică sunt:
The ritual – the rhythm – the power of the collective – developed during her work in Ghana and Portugal
Neuroscience – related to several projects that researched energy and electricity
Interaction with the public – a practice present in his works of the last 10 years
Therapeutic artistic practice – a bridge that he constantly strengthens
Biography/autobiography – integrating and interrogating personal experiences and recent historical events regarding the historical events of Romania in the last century

Denis Bolborea is a sound designer, dancer and choreographer, with work experience in the field of performing arts. In his personal artistic pursuits, Denis shows a special concern for the connection between voice and body. As a performer, he combines contemporary dance techniques with the baggage accumulated in urban dance experience. He develops in parallel as a vocal soloist and beatboxer, and gets involved in various projects in which he places himself at the intersection between these roles, incorporating a live looping setup and vocal processors. He is part of the vocal group Blue Noise, in which Denis performs the role of percussion.

Between 2014-2018 he traveled and created together with Tangaj Dance, an artistic collective coordinated by Simona Deaconescu, collaborating as a performer and/or sound-designer in various productions presented both in the country and in international festivals, from cities such as Sofia, Linz, Istanbul, New York.

Oana Dorneanu – Psychotherapist Jungian Analyst and Counselor in Art Therapy Phronetik

Directed to the study of Art Therapy out of a fascination with art, she found in it an extraordinary form of inner exploration and expression of soul movements, sometimes impossible to express in words. She continued deepening his knowledge with the Jungian Analytical Psychotherapy training, which he completed in 2019, obtaining the Analytical Psychotherapist certification and the right to practice freely from the College of Psychologists in Romania. Currently a member of the Romanian Association of Analytical Psychotherapy and works in his personal practice with children and adults offering individual sessions of Analytical Psychotherapy or Art Therapy depending on the needs of the client or patient.

Florin Constantin – professional photographer

“My camera is the realm where I mirror realities.

My objective is to put the light in such a way as to reveal the beautiful, sometimes hidden in the depths of the soul, beyond any face and in any form.

I expose and I want you to see “differently”, and photography is my means of expression, it is the way I look and show myself to the world, it is the art that defines me and through which I define the essence of life.”

Between March 25 and 26, 2023, a casting was held to identify three new collaborators to complete the artistic team. This one hasheld in the form of a voice, movement and creation workshop in which the two choreographers, Alexandra Bălășoiu and Cristina Lilienfeld, together with the sound designer Denis Bolborea guided the participants in a creative and reflective process around their own moments of “madness” and meeting her outside. During the selection process, both the artistic skills (motor and vocal) and the ability of the performers to connect with the proposed subject were followed.

Out of the 33 workshop participants, the creative team chose Cătălin Diaconu, Cătălin Munteanu and Diana Spiridon.

mind-moving is a project initiated and organized by Indie Box, in partnership with NOPA – Norwegian Society of Composers and Lyricists, Entuziart Association and Profeti ART SRL.

Implementation partners: Voila Hospital from Câmpina, “Eftimie Diamandescu” Hospital from Bălăceanca, Rezidența9, Trafo Kunsthall, Asker kommune.

mind-movingis a project financed with the support of EEA Grants 2014 – 2021 within the RO-CULTURE ProgrammeThe project has a non-reimbursable value of 969072 lei (197012,33 euro) and is carried out over a period of 15 months in Bucharest, Bălăceanca, Câmpina and Oslo.

Get involved

Contact person:

Alexandra Bălășoiu, artistic director
+40766276705, alexandra@indiebox.ro

This project is financed with the support of EEA Grants 2014 – 2021 within the RO-CULTURE Programme.

The EEA grants represent the contribution of Iceland, the Principality of Liechtenstein and the Kingdom of Norway to the reduction of economic and social disparities in the European Economic Area and to the strengthening of bilateral relations with the 15 beneficiary states in Eastern and Southern Europe and the Baltic states. These financing mechanisms are established on the basis of the Agreement on the European Economic Area, which brings together the EU member states and Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway as equal partners in the internal market. In total, the three states contributed €3.3 billion between 1994 and 2014 and €1.55 billion for the 2014-2021 funding period. More details are available at: www.eeagrants.org & www.eeagrants.ro.

RO CULTURA is implemented by the Ministry of Culture through the Project Management Unit and has as its general objective the consolidation of economic and social development through cultural cooperation, cultural entrepreneurship and cultural heritage management. The Program’s budget is approximately 34 million euros. More details on www.ro-cultura.ro

From December 2022 to February 2024, Indie Box is running the mind-moving project, an approach born out of a desire to reduce disparities between the general public and people with psychiatric diagnoses through contemporary music and dance. The project is carried out in two psychiatric hospitals with which the project team had positive work experiences […]