OM - Body & Space Residencies - August 2025
After a one-month residency within the OM – Body & Space program, artists Constance Diard [fr] and Szilárd Gáspár [ro] present to the public, on Friday, August 29, the results of their research. Their artistic process has brought together dance, sculpture, and performance, opening a dialogue between order and disorder, strength and fragility, body and matter.
Constance Diard shares extracts from her research at OM Choreographic Center, focused on the notion of entropy. Exploring dances of order and disorder, she seeks to imagine a space of unpredictability. Considering the body as a tool of perception across the dimensions of time and space, she aims to embody the idea that “time is part of a complex geometry, woven with the geometry of space.”
During his residency at OM – Body & Space in Cluj-Napoca, Szilárd Gáspár develops a series of performances exploring movement as a form of living sculpture. His concept starts from the observation that boxing has its own choreography, where movements, rhythm, distances, and the tension between bodies form an extremely precise physical and mental composition. This body grammar, born out of combat, is placed in parallel with contemporary dance and ballet, where control, expressiveness, and the relationship with space become artistic tools. Through contact with clay and other sculptural materials, Gáspár constructs a conceptual “ring,” where the body not only shapes but is also shaped. The resulting performance becomes a dialogue between strength and fragility, between form and gesture, between instinct and composition. The final presentation in the dance space offers a sensory and visual experience in which the boundaries between sculpture, combat, and dance dissolve.
The residency is part of the program OM – Body & Space. This cultural project is co-financed by The Administration of the National Cultural Fund. The project does not necessarily represent the official position of The Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN shall not be held liable for the project's content or any use to which the project outcome might be put. These are the sole responsibility of the beneficiary of the funding.
Project partner: Institut français de Roumanie à Cluj
Constance Diard
Constance Diard, born in 1997, is a French dancer and choreographer, she trained in contemporary dance at the CNSMD in Paris.
Constance works as a performer with various French companies, for stage pieces as well as in situ creations. She works with Sylvie Le Quéré, Antoine Arbeit, Max Fossati, Liz Santoro and Pierre Godard, Béatrice Massin and Mélanie Perrier, among others.
Since 2020, she has been working with Alban Richard at the CCN de Caen en Normandie, on the creations „3 works for 12 and Vivace”, as well as on site specific projects such as „Exalte”, a choreographic performance for the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
In 2022, she assisted Noé Soulier (CNDC Angers) on the creation of First Memory, which premiered in 2022 during the Kunstenfestivaldesarts.
Since 2019, Constance has been developing creative projects in partnership with Lucas Bassereau. Together, they created several pieces, including 3 site-specific durational performances. They have performed at La Fileuse in Reims, at the Abbaye Notre Dame du Reclus and at the Villa Cavrois, where they created „Ambiance, une installation chorégraphique et sonore”. Their choreographic research is also developing on stage with the piece „Big Bang”, created in 2023.
During the 2024-2025 season, Constance takes part in the Millenial Academy, a transdisciplinary training and research program as part of the City of Caen's Millennium. Through this program, Constance is developing a new project: a choreographic solo intended for museum and heritage spaces.
Szilárd Gáspár
Szilárd Gáspár is a skilful young sculptor and a performance artist from the Cluj School of Art, Romania; born in 1991, the artist is also a promising young professional boxer, successfully representing Romania in many different international sport competitions.
His specific boxing abilities allow him to pursue a very special conceptual approach in performance art, since the leading theme in the artist’s research is at this moment the nature of the struggle between human power and matter; thus, his sportive talent enriches Szilárd Gáspár’s research from both a spectacular and a credible perspective.
Szilard Gaspar has been fighting against boxing bags made out of clay during his last two performances, in October 2014 at Bazis contemporary art space in Cluj Napoca, Romania and, again in December 2014 in Budapest, during a performance match organized by Flash Art Hungary.
His works have been shown in major cities worldwide, including London, Paris, New York, and Seoul.
