Conexus Dance
Conexus Dance is a collaborative and multilayered project addressing EU-CONEXUS students and staff in order to create synergy and an inter campus connection through the art of movement.
Over a period of nine months, from September 2023 to May 2024, nine masterclasses were held at the nine EU-CONEXUS universities. They were supervised by the dance artist Jennifer Macavinta in collaboration with 3 local dancers and choreographers, Roxana Alexandra Costea (Romania), Ester Garijo (Spain) and Matea Bilosnić (Croatia).
A group of 140 students and staff members from EU-CONEXUS Alliance participated to the project strengthening their sense of community by creating an original movement phrase inspired from« Smart Urban Coastal Sustainability ».
The choreography is based on the « Cadavre exquis » game. The 4 initial words « Smart Urban Coastal Sustainability » transposed into a short movement phrase were completed and passed from one university to another in order to create a long movement phrase made of 36 words gathered in the nine EU-CONEXUS languages (Croatian, English, French, German, Greek, Irish, Lithuanian, Romanian, Spanish).
The music composition that accompanies the final video dance is made of recordings from the languages listed above spoken by native speakers. It features the richness of EU-CONEXUS’ diversity of cultures and its multilingual identity.
Water is also an essential component of this video as the bond that unites us all in EU-CONEXUS.
Discover the Conexus Dance final video
Trust connected inspiring multilayered language body words cultures collaboration lost in translation strength in being vulnerable
Conexus Dance itinerary
Click on the map to discover Conexus Dance itinerary.
Participating in the EU-CONEXUS Dance Project was a new challenge for me, giving me the opportunity to go beyond the usual limits, to collaborate in a different way with people and to express feelings and gestures through dance movements.
Ștefania Hăbeanu – UTCB student
Supervising artist, dancer and choreographer
Jennifer Macavinta
Jennifer Macavinta is a Filipino-American dancer and choreographer. She received her dance degree from California State University, Long Beach. She has toured extensively and internationally with Pilobolus Dance Theatre. In France, she was awarded the “Talents Danse” Adami prize for a solo interpretation (Paris 2006). The choreographer Kaori Ito gave her her role in Le Bourgeois gentilhomme with French director, Denis Podalydes. Jennifer Macavinta
choreographed and performed L’enfant et les sortilèges (presented on French national theatres and at the Philharmonie de Paris). In 2021, she received her black belt in Tai Chi Chuan from the French Karate Federation. Today, she is part of an art collectif at the Maison Müe where she continues to create and share her two passions: martial arts and dance.
Collaboration with local dancers and choreographers in some countries
Roxana Alexandra Costea – Romania
Roxana Alexandra Costea is a dancer and choreographer, graduate of UNATC Bucharest and part of the “Cuibul Artistilor” (Artists’ Nest) an independent theatre team in Bucharest.
“The EU-Conexus Dance project was a refreshing experience. I met and worked with people who were open to exploring and I was able to share with them the joy of creating art through movement. I would happily repeat the experience anytime!” Roxana Costea
Ester Garijo, Contemporary dancer and choreographer
Ester Garijo – Spain
She studied at the Valencia Higher Dance Conservatory and there she participated into a European project that brought together universities from Germany, The Netherlands and Spain. She has also danced in several Valencian companies and also at a European level. She has worked with choreographers such as Ivan Pérez, Georg Reischl, Toni Aparisi, Ananda Dansa.
She is currently a dance teacher and also combines dance with photography.
Matea Bilosnić – Croatia
Matea Bilosnić is a choreographer, dancer, performer and a multimedia artist. She began her dance education in the Zadar Dance Ensemble, with which she continues to collaborate as a choreographer, performer, videographer and organizer to this day.
For two years, she worked as a performer in the dance company En Knap Group (Slovenia) where she collaborated with Joseph Nadj, Kathleen Fischer (Trisha Brown dance company), Guy Nader & Maria Campos. After returning to Croatia, she collaborates with numerous theaters creating choreography and shaping stage movement in dramatic performances. With Zadar Dance Ensemble, she created Gozd-danse macabre, for which she was awarded with the award of the Croatian Theater Gild in the category of best choreography in 2020. The same year, she also created the solo Klown, for which she also created music, choreography and text, and is currently on tour. She is a teaching assistant at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb, teaching Stage movement course. Matea is also a part of the production team for the Stream Zadar educational platform, and coordinator and selector of the Monoplay festival of contemporary dance. In addition to theater and dance, she is also interested in music and is self-taught in music production in Ableton software.
This activity is organised under the EU-funded Project EU-CONEXUS Plus (Project number 101089709) titled : “A significant step forward for the European University for Smart Urban Coastal Sustainability” .
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
