THE CHOREOGRAPHY OF WATER

SIMONA DEACONESCU, IOANA VREME MOSER, SIMINA OPRESCU
A TANGAJ COLLECTIVE PRODUCTION

THE BODY AS STREAMS

PROJECT SUMMARY

The Choreography of Water explores the movement of water, from the invisible flows inside the body to those that shape the planet.

Inside the human body, water flows constantly—through blood, lymph, tears, sweat, menstrual fluid. These movements keep us alive, regulate temperature, allow us to heal, to feel, to procreate. Block or reroute them, and the system collapses. The same happens to the planet: when rivers are dammed, lakes emptied, seas rerouted, or waters relocated, the circulatory system of Earth is disturbed, breaking the balance between all living systems.

This idea unfolds through the artistic visions of choreographer Simona Deaconescu, visual artist Ioana Vreme Moser, and sound artist Simina Oprescu, embodied by four performers. They move within haunted landscapes shaped by transparent, glass-and-tubing sculptures that circulate streams of water. These hybrid instruments—part organ, part machine—act as a fluid computer, where every loop, blockage, and redirection generates sound. Sometimes the dancers trigger the streams; other times, the streams dictate their movement.

The creation process for The Choreography of Water project began in March-April 2025 at CNDB, taking the form of an interdisciplinary exploratory laboratory, and will be further continued in early autumn with rehearsals and public presentations.

With funding already secured from the Administration of the National Cultural Fund of Romania (AFCN), the Goethe Institute in Bucharest, the Italian Cultural Institute in Bucharest, and scientific and logistic support from art and science NGOs Marginal and Qolony, the project is set to premiere on stage on the 4th and 5th of October 2025 at CNDB. A subsequent application for local and national funding will be made to create in situ performances in Bucharest and Timisoara. 

The team is now planning to expand the project into a public space performance for 2026–2027, working with sites where the natural flow of water has been disrupted by human action—whether interrupted, rerouted, depleted, stopped, or wasted—and exploring the conceptual depth that emerges from these altered landscapes.

FLUID MORPHOLOGIES

CONCEPT

Based in Bucharest, Simona Deaconescu works across performance, installation, and speculative research, exploring themes such as marginality, feminism, virtuality, and the sensation of existing between times, histories, and realities, with works presented throughout Europe, as well as in Mexico and Canada. Ioana Vreme Moser, based in Berlin, has been honored twice at Prix Ars Electronica for work in experimental electronics and sound art, while Simina Oprescu, also Berlin-based, focuses on acousmatics and the sonification of data. Together, they shape a performance that examines water in motion—from the deep planetary currents to the invisible flows within our own bodies, the show invites audiences to reimagine how water connects, sustains, and transforms life.

Four dancers interact with Ioana’s water-based objects—transparent glass and tubing structures that circulate 50 liters of water in continuous motion. These hybrid objects, shaped like organs or underground waterways, act as “components” of a fluid computer, where the speed, resistance, and oscillation of water streams generate sound. Sometimes the dancers initiate the interaction, triggering streams, loops, or blockages through their touch and movement; other times, the objects themselves provoke the dancers, releasing sounds and flows that demand a response. The result is a constant exchange—always moving, never silent—where bodies and instruments become interdependent storytellers.

The sounds—abstract, breath-like, raw—are amplified into immersive sonic landscapes. Their sources are sometimes hidden, creating moments of acousmatic mystery, and sometimes revealed, allowing audiences to witness the deep connection between the movement of water and the movement of the body. The performance shifts between micro and macro soundscapes: from the subtle resonance of saline fluids in our veins, evoking our oceanic origins, to the vast sonic textures of altered rivers and deep seas on a transformed planet.

MOVING INTO THE PUBLIC SPACE

IN SITU DEVELOPMENT

The site-specific development of The Choreography of Water extends Astrida Neimanis’ reminder that “water is never neutral.” As both a life-giving substance and a deeply politicized element, water is constantly displaced, controlled, and transformed—through dams, canals, reservoirs, artificial lakes, emptied pools. Performing in such sites brings these hidden infrastructures into visibility, foregrounding how human interventions reshape both ecosystems and our own embodied relation to water.

Each version of the work is regenerated in dialogue with its location, informed by local water histories. This process requires prior research, site visits, and several days of rehearsal and adaptation on site—or, ideally, a residency where these aspects can be fully developed. The performance becomes a temporary ecosystem of its own, where dancers, fluidic sculptures, and sound instruments interact with the specific conditions of the place.

The water-based sculptures, functioning as fluid computers, circulate streams of water that generate sound and movement, positioning water as both collaborator and witness. By staging these dialogues between human and non-human flows, the performance proposes a speculative shift: from controlling water to choreographing with it.

This approach opens a new stage for the project, situating the work inside the spaces where water politics are most tangible. Industrial sites, water towers, or artificial reservoirs become arenas where the symbolic and material “choreography of water” is revealed, and where audiences are invited to reflect on their own complicity in these systems.

Our artistic team embodies the same fluidity we stage: working transnationally, adapting across cultures, and carrying migratory experiences that echo water’s capacity to cross boundaries. Through this lens, The Choreography of Water connects the micro (the fluids within the body) to the macro (territorial and planetary water systems), engaging audiences in reimagining water as a co-creator of shared futures.

By bringing the work into public space, we democratize access while challenging audiences to confront the infrastructures that govern water flows. In this way, The Choreography of Water situates itself as both critique and proposition: an invitation to rethink our relationship with water not through domination, but through care, reciprocity, and cohabitation.

MEET THE MAKERS

BIOGRAPHIES
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SIMONA DEACONESCU

Born in Romania in 1987, Simona Deaconescu is a choreographer and filmmaker based in Bucharest.

She examines social constructs, bridging fiction and objective reality. Her work delves into critical scenarios of the body while speculating on its role in past and future societies. She often works collectively, either in interdisciplinary groups or in creative duos. In her art, the performative meets the cinematic in spaces where nature, history, and technology converge, expanding the notion of choreography beyond the human body.

She studied choreography at the National University of Theatre and Film in Bucharest and film directing at the Media University of Romania.

She has been developing her work in innovation and research-based networks such as Moving Digits, MODINA, biofriction, and Forecast, and she was awarded twice as an Aerowaves Artist, in 2018 and 2022, and once as a Moving Balkan Artist in 2025.

In 2014, Simona founded Tangaj Collective, a transdisciplinary production company working with artists and researchers. Their creations span performances, installations, films, and videos that reached audiences across the Balkans and Eastern Europe, British Columbia, Mexico, and Madagascar.

“From historic dance pandemics to microbiology, it seems no subject is too complex or challenging for the choreographer—and if there’s any fervor here, it’s for new creation and innovating the form.”

Janet Smith, Stir Arts & Culture Vancouver, 2024

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Ioana Moser

IOANA VREME MOSER

Born in Romania in 1994, Ioana Vreme Moser is a sound artist based in Berlin, engaged in hardware electronics, speculative research, and tactile experimentation.

In her practice, she uses rough electronic processes to obtain different materialities of sound. She places electronic components and control voltages in situations of interaction with her body, organic materials, lost and found items, and environmental stimuli. From these collisions, synthesized sounds emerge to carry personal narrations and observations on the history of electronics, their production chains, wastelands, and entanglements in the natural world.

She holds a BA in Fine Arts at the Faculty of Fine Arts and Design, Graphics Department in Timisoara, Romania, and received an Erasmus Scholarship at the Faculty of Intermedia / Jan-Matejko-Akademy of Fine Arts in Kraków, Poland. She lectured at Tangible Music Lab, Kunstuniversität Linz, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Washington, HFK, University of the Arts Bremen, and Musik Academy Krakow Studio for Electroacoustic Music.

Amongst others, she has performed and exhibited at the National Gallery of Denmark (DK), Fonderie Darling (CA), singuhr (DE), Akademie der Künste Berlin (DE); Manifesta 14 (XK); SFX Sound Effects Seoul (KR), Ars Electronica (AT), Bunkier Sztuki Gallery Krakow (PL); Simultan Festival (RO); Eigen+Art Lab – Transmediale, Berlin (DE).

“Ioana Vreme Moser invites us to pause and be aware of the fragility of our existence. She encourages us to listen to and respect our own slow but stable rhythm, like that of a resilient nature.”

Diane Pricop, Obsolete, 2024

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SIMINA OPRESCU

Simina Oprescu, born in 1993, is a Romanian composer of electroacoustic music and sound artist based in Berlin, Germany, submersing herself in the intricacies of sound’s acoustic and spectral properties. Her compositions embrace a diverse array of instruments, spanning from analog synthesizers to computer music or string instruments. Simina employs acoustic artifacts from physical or natural spaces as recordings, showcasing techniques cultivated through an investigative electroacoustic composition approach. Her exploration takes her deep into structures and phenomena, weaving potent yet nuanced harmonic narratives influenced by psychoacoustics, consciousness studies, spatial arts, and theoretical or physical sound-sculpture installations.

Her work was presented in numerous festivals, music/radio platforms, galleries and museums, collaborating with various international video artists, and her sound compositions were exhibited in EVA International | Ireland’s Biennial, Museum Tinguely (Basel), Märkisches Museum (Berlin), Palmer Gallery (London), Art Encounters Foundation, MOTA Museum (Ljubljana), n.b.k Berlin, Hošek Contemporary, Suprainfinit Gallery (Bucharest), MARe museum Bucharest (Museum of Recent Art), SONICA, Cynetart, Rokolectiv, Simultan or ORF musikprotokoll and having her work mentioned in various magazines, like Positionen Berlin or The Wire. Her releases include work on the Swiss label Hallow Ground. In 2020 she was selected to be part of the SHAPE+ platform artist roster.

“Her music is fascinating and makes you consider the relationship between yourself and the sounds that surround you, how you interact with them and react to them, where they touch you the most, how and why.”

Will Pinfold, Spectrum Culture, 2024

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