Scholarship Recipient 2012: Romania
 

Jean-Lorin Sterian

Current Address:




danceWEB Impressions:

In the fall of 2011 I met someone who just returned from danceWEB. She spoke in terms of absolute praise about this scholarship. Somewha/Somehowt surprised, I asked her what is so special about danceWEB? The workshops, shows, the city? She replied: danceWEB it's about love. I was quite circumspect when I heard that and I thought that she had a nice love story in Vienna and she talks like this because of it.
A year later, when I came back from danceWEB my first post afterVienna was: "It happened to spend one month with the most beautiful, warm and intelligent people I've ever met." And next day I added:
"When I most need it."
A few weeks before I embarked the plane to Vienna, I wrote an email to Hanna (who along with Dennis gives life to this fabulous creature called danceWEB, a body with 67 hearts), asking if it is possible, due to some serious health problems, to postpone my participation to the next year. I wasn’t possible, so filled with concerns about my physical ability to cope with the workshops, I decided to come, thinking that if I dive, I'll have to learn how to swim.
It's hard to explain to others and even to me what happened in Vienna, how this collective body & soul began to take shape after some time. I do not know if 2012 was a generation more emotional than in previous years. The fact is that I never lived a group experience so intense with so many strangers. When I came home for a while I felt an orphan, a solitary piece of a puzzle that even if we try to put it togheter, there will never take the shape it had between 11th July- 15th august 2012.
I was more than pleasantly surprised about the fact that teachers and dancewebbers were so open about the fact that I had no choreographic background. I realize then that looking at things in a different way can become an advantage.

Surrounded by love (I couldn’t use the translation of love in Romanian, it sound terribly corny), my mind was relaxed therefore the body became a good servant.
Danceweb is about love because it means doing things that you love with people whom you love.
Of all the workshops and coaching projecct, the most I resonatedwith On Time, with Janez Jansa. After the coaching project was finished, along with most of the participants, we have formed a group that will try to continue the project started during the class.

On 12 ocombrie, two months after returning from danceWEB I did my first solo. It was impregnated by my experience from danceWEB. Before going on stage, I felt the humming giant hug from the last night in Vienna.
I believe the schedule sometimes is too much. Too much workshops, too much information, too much parties, too much shows, too many people to know. And because you know that danceWEB it happens only once in your life (ok, twice for frogs) you want it all. There was a time, at the end of the recidency, when I perceived even the marvelous sunny breakfast at the pool as something that I have to attend to, not a nice event to join with my lovelies. I propose one peculiar day, someday between the second and the third week when for the dancewebbers to be forbidden to attend to any workshop, show or party. Howgh!
All my gratitude to all those who made possible my presence in danceWEB: ICR Viena, National Dance Center Bucharest, those three friends who wrote the letters of recommendation, those who helped me to fill in forms and Hanna who instantly reported that I accidentally sent the application of someone else (who had served as a model) instead of mine.
Indeed, danceWEB is about love. Time passes so quickly, all the others seem so sweet lost like yourself, you want to do so much with only one body and mind and also you wind up feeling much more than reasoning. Maybe that's why danceWEB is so emotional.