Heart2hearT, a show by Romanian choreographer Gigi Căciuleanu on a score by Romanian composer Dan Dediu, is shown at Battery Dance Festival in New York this week, the Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) announced.

The performance is a free choreographic duo inspired by the story of the Miorița, seen as a "symbol of absolute devotion and of the serene acceptance of death." Căciuleanu offers a reinterpretation of the myth, one that is charged with "poetic energy" and uses the trademark choreographic language that has made him a household name, a description of the project reads. "Through their complex movements, the two dancers imagine a corporeal geometry, like two living metaphors of love and sacrifice, evolving in a timeless universe between Heaven and Earth."

The dancers are Domenico Guido Sarnataro and Sara Zanzon. Lelia Marcu-Vladu is the assistant choreographer.

The show is a production of the Sibiu Ballet Theater and Gigi Căciuleanu Romanian Dance Company in collaboration with the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York.

The show runs at Rockefeller Park—Battery Park City. After a performance on August 13, another is scheduled for August 17. Attendance is free.  All performances are available to stream on the festival's website the following day.

Gigi Căciuleanu is a director, choreographer, professor, and dancer. He studied at the Choreography High School in Bucharest and The Academy of Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. A decisive influence on his entire career came from the choreographer and professor Miriam Răducanu. Since he left the country 30 years ago, he has worked with dancers and choreographers such as Pina Bausch, Marius Constant, Rosella Hightower, John Neumayer, Jean Guizerix, and Maguy Marin. He created dance performances for the repertory of the Opera Houses in Paris, Lyon, Bucharest, Cardiff, Rome, Venice (La Fenice) and for other dance companies in Hamburg, Torino, Santiago de Chile, Montevideo, and São Paulo. After 1990, he has returned several times to Romania, invited by The National Television, Eurodance Festival in Iasi, Sibiu International Theatre Festival, Oleg Danovski Ballet Theatre, and Teatrul de Comedie. After 2001, he became director of the National Ballet of Chile, part of the Santiago de Chile University.

(Photo: ICR New York on Facebook)

simona@romania-insider.com