COLLECTIVE CADENCE

lecture performance | 60 minutes | 2024

DESCRIPTION

Collective Cadence examines the complex dynamics between mass dances, individual expression, and control systems. The lecture performance emphasizes rhythm’s crucial role in encapsulating and disseminating collective desires and fears. Intertwining elements of history, ethnomusicology, and AI co-creation, it scrutinizes how performing rhythm functions as a societal response mechanism, supporting, evading, or combating dominant structures.

Integrating Artificial Intelligence as a speculative sound and text generation tool, Collective Cadence creates space for undisciplined and unpredictable cadences. Encouraging the potential of diverging from established norms, the Romanian duo artfully combines sound and movement to question and defy the homogenized rhythms imposed on us.

Collective Cadence builds on Simona Deaconescu’s research on mass dance events during liminal periods and Grigore Burloiu’s work in interactive music and rhythm generation. The work reflects on the use of AI in artistic creation, shares insights into the creative process, and openly discusses the challenges and revelations the two artists encountered. This transparency invites audience participation, transforming viewers into timely collaborators and partial creators of the show’s content.

This lecture performance is informed by the fruitful discussions the artists had with political analyst Professor Matt Davies and artist and curator Bogomir Doringer.

PROCESS

Collective Cadence is a lecture performance that examines the profound connection between crowd rhythms, individual identities, and the transformative power of mass dances throughout history, brought into conversation with the disruptive potential of artificial intelligence. Grounded in a deep exploration of how dance reflects and shapes socio-political contexts, the performance merges historical mass celebrations—from the ecstatic rituals of the Bacchanalia and Middle Ages Choreomanias to the ideological choreography of 20th-century propaganda—with speculative insights into AI’s role as a partner and provocateur.

Dance research is at the core of this project, framing rhythm not only as the tempo of movement but as a societal pulse, shaping collective memories and rebellions. Inspired by forbidden and censored dances like Soviet jazz, Metaxas-era rebetiko, and Romanian rock, the performance uses AI to analyze and reimagine rhythm through sound and language. Tools like “Holy Trolly,” a sound-based AI, and “The Dance Anarchist,” a language model trained on dance histories, act as creative agents—improvising, challenging, and sometimes derailing the process. Their interaction highlights the complexities of entrainment, divergence, and the feedback loops of historical narratives.

Collective Cadence engages with questions of control, obedience, and resistance through performative experiments and audience participation. The audience becomes part of the rhythm, clapping and interacting with AI to create unpredictable musical compositions. These moments resonate with the broader themes of divergent rhythms and their power to resist synchronized conformity. They offer a playful yet profound critique of historical and modern systems that seek to control the body and its movements.

As the performance traverses histories of dance epidemics, rave protests, and choreographed ideologies, it asks: What does it mean to dance in defiance of control? How do rhythm and memory intertwine in our resistance to oppression? And how can technology help us rediscover the collective power of moving out of sync? By weaving dance research, AI, and audience participation into a multisensory narrative, Collective Cadence invites us to reflect on the liberating potential of rhythm as both memory and rebellion.

TEAM

Concept, text, and performance Simona Deaconescu, Grigore Burloiu

Choreography, dramaturgy, and video design Simona Deaconescu

Music and creative technologies Grigore Burloiu

Consultants Matt Davies, Bogomir Doringer

Graphic design Ioana Trusca

MODINA mentors Diogo Cabral, David Santos

Producer Simona Deaconescu

Project assistant Georgia Elza Maciuceanu

DATES

March 2, 2025 — The National Centre for Dance, Bucharest, RO

November 27, 2024 — CoFestival, Kino Siska, Ljubljana, SI

November 10, 2024 — Iridescent Festival, CNDB, Bucharest, RO

October 12, 2024 — Tanzhaus NRW, Dusseldorf, DE

April 30, 2024 — Trafo House, Budapest, HU

PARTNERS AND SPONSORS

Realized in the frame of MODINA, a project co-funded by the Creative Europe program of the European Union, with €1 million (70% of the total project budget). Grant Number: 101099581-CREA-CULT-2022-COOP-2 (https://modina.eu).

Part of the project RHYTHMS AND CROWDS, a cultural project produced by the Tangaj Collective Association and supported by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund of Romania — AFCN. The project does not necessarily represent the position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN is not responsible for the project’s content or how the project results can be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the beneficiary of the financing.