Dans, Intervention in public space

Spring Tides

“The spring tides of a good girl” tells the story of a mother who went crazy on an autumn day. The performance exposes different points of view on madness, the way in which the “mad” is seen socially, as well as the way in which he feels in relation to others. The “crazy” label can place you in various relationships with the “normal” world: a problem that needs to be solved, a source of creativity, a mirror of social dysfunctions, an obstacle to be avoided, an amalgam of incoherences. In her speech, Alexandra integrates both her personal memory and fragments of the memories she came across during this research.

Concept and interpretation: Alexandra Bălășoiu
Visual artist (drawing & graphics): Amalia Dulhan

Video teaser created within the “Movemental” project, organized by Profeti Art and Indie Box, in partnership with the Voila Psychiatric Hospital and co-financed by the National Cultural Fund Administration.

Video and photo: Gabriel Durlan
Music: Denis Bolborea

*audio, video and photo fragments captured live during the performances at Câmpina, 2021

My darling,

Sometimes from our souls we spit flames of anger and suffering like a dragon that has forgotten to fly. Other times, they gather like a mist among the shoulder blades, tissues, and bones. They wrap around our lines like cotton wool on a stick, and if we don’t have the time and patience to untangle them, like the balls on a counter, there will come days when their foam will pour over us. From that foam, once, I saw sun and flames, joy and ecstasy that I could not grasp with my mind and that I spat out chaotically like a dragon frightened by its reflection in the mirror.

Then I entered a narrow gray corridor, where I split into two balls, of fire and silence, sometimes of ecstasy and numbness. I rolled through the narrow, bland aisles, trying to walk precisely along their unimportant lines. I forgot about me, time and you.

I then rested against a tree and embraced all this stranger, whose lines of sadness extended to me.

No one can ever really know you. And the greatest act of courage that love can do is to accept that a sea flows inside you. A sea foaming and still and cold and warm and with jellyfish and fish and turtles swimming in the depths. The sea does not take kindly to the plastic of our human inventions, and although we are all construction specialists, inside we are a water that never stops. Water erodes over and over and over. It adapts, swirls, responds. A sea does not fit in a bottle.

“Spring tides of a good girl” is an Indie Box production created within the program 4 Corpuri – collective for dance, a multi-year program coordinated by the Gabriela Tudor Foundation and co-financed by the National Cultural Fund Administration.

The program does not necessarily represent the position of the National Cultural Fund Administration. AFCN is not responsible for the content of the program or how the results of the program may be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the beneficiary of the funding.

As part of the project, Iulia Marin interviewed 5 people with a history of psychosis and/or bipolar disorder: