From May 8th to 10th, 2026, we warmly invite you to the Reactor Showcase – Research Spaces! For three wonderful days, we are bringing together the most recent Reactor productions to celebrate and discuss the vital role of artistic research in theatre. We will also explore exciting ways to make these creative processes even more visible and accessible to both theatre professionals and our amazing audiences!

Alongside the spectacular lineup of performances, we are thrilled to host the "Research Spaces" conference at Reactor from May 9th to 10th. This inspiring event will spotlight fantastic presentations on artistic research methods, featuring wonderful guest speakers: Adriana Gheorghe, Monica Olivia Grecea, Alexandru Berceanu, Roxana Lăpădat, and Ilinca Tamara Todoruț.

A heartfelt invitation is open to artists, researchers, theatre professionals, the general public, and anyone curious to join! No reservation is needed to attend the conference—just bring your enthusiasm!

We can't wait to see you there!

Conference Program: Research Spaces

May 9, 2026
11:00 – 11:10
Conference Opening
11:10 – 11:40
Radical, Vulnerable, Authentic, Relevant, and Other Creative Desires, by Monica Olivia Grecea (Director, University Lecturer, Clinical Psychologist)
The creative journey is a beautiful path of setting, reaching, shifting, and gently dissolving personal and collective boundaries. In my current practice, I strive to cultivate relaxation and mindful presence amidst the natural anxieties of creation.

Monica Olivia Grecea is a theatre director, researcher, and lecturer at the Faculty of Theatre and Film at Babeș-Bolyai University. She loves working with students in Theatre Directing and, since 2022, with Master's students in the Theatre in Education program. Her research joyfully explores the independent theatre scene and new creative paradigms. She is passionate about performativity, interdisciplinarity, collaborative and feminist artistic practices, autofiction, and practice-as-research.

11:50 – 12:40
Feminist Dramaturgies Against the Theatre, by Ilinca Tamara Todoruț (University Lecturer at the Faculty of Theatre and Film, UBB) – presentation in English
I propose an exciting understanding of dramaturgy as a process of structuring not just texts and bodies in performance, but also production models and organizational forms. I love exploring how feminist dramaturgies can transcend existing theatre institutions, relationships, and aesthetics forged within androcentric, capitalist, and imperialist states, and shaped after authoritarian, racist, sexist, and classist structures.

Ilinca Tamara Todoruț is a passionate lecturer at the Faculty of Theatre and Film at UBB, where she teaches theatre criticism and contemporary theatre in relation to today's lively socio-political, economic, and technological landscapes. As a theatre scholar and production dramaturg, her work wonderfully blends practical theatre-making with a theory deeply rooted in the lived realities of both artists and spectators. Ilinca has studied, taught, and worked in theatre across three continents—from Norway to the United States and China—and holds an MA in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism, as well as a PhD in Theatre from Yale University.

12:50 – 13:40
In Past Years I Spoke About the Institution of Performance and Sublunar. I Take It All Back, by Adriana Gheorghe (Artist, Founder of Teatre)
I will playfully start from the idea that artistic practice, especially performative practice, meets artistic research through its counterintuitive potential to step into and participate in reality. Carefully choreographed verbal language shapes and reshapes worlds, turning performance mechanisms into gestures that can beautifully tune our presence in the world according to our desires and needs.

Adriana Gheorghe began her journey in literature and art theory, and for about ten years, she has been joyfully choreographing verbal language in the context of contemporary dance—exploring its many possibilities at the crossroads of post-dramatic theatre, poetry, theory, and conceptual art. Over the past three and a half years, she has transformed her artistic practice into a physical space – Teatre, in Bucharest. In 2025, she was happily awarded the Gheorghe Iova prize for literary experiment for her work with Teatre.

May 10, 2026
11:00 – 11:10
Conference Opening
11:10 – 12:00
T-NET, LIMINAL-VITAL, by Alexandru Berceanu (Director and Associate Professor in the Animation and Interaction Department at UNATC)
Sparked by a series of workshops on loss in 2021, I developed a wonderfully autobiographical improvisation practice dedicated to emotional development and building resilience, called T-NET. The development of T-NET beautifully weaves together artistic research and interdisciplinary art-neuroscience-psychology. Through exploring this five-year journey, we will look at the exciting challenges of blurring the lines between research and creation in Romania's cultural-creative ecosystem.

Alexandru I. Berceanu is a mixed-reality director and associate professor in the Animation and Interaction Department at the National University of Theatre and Film "I.L. Caragiale" (UNATC) in Bucharest, where he also happily teaches in the Community and Therapeutic Theatre Master's program. He conducts fascinating interdisciplinary research at the intersection of art and neuroscience, focusing on emotional regulation and prosocial behavior using theatre and immersive media in playful, gamified ways. He is the proud initiator of the International Center for Research and Education in Innovative and Creative Technologies (CINETic) at UNATC, as well as the Interactive Technologies Master's program. 

12:10 – 13:00
The Archive: The Experience of the Document as a Performative Gesture, by Roxana Lăpădat (Creator, Artist, Researcher, and Cultural Manager)
This presentation brings to life the way physical and personal archives can be dynamically activated as performative formats. It explores the beautiful connections between recent history and our contemporary experience through three artistic projects created within the exciting Horizon Europe project, NARDIV – United in Narrative Diversity?

Roxana Lăpădat is an energetic creator, producer, and cultural manager working at the vibrant crossroads of performative and visual arts. She has a rich, multidisciplinary background with degrees in philology (German-English) and performing arts (acting), as well as a Master's in communication and public relations. Currently, she is conducting doctoral research on the impact of foreign cultural policies as a form of soft power in times of crisis, focusing on German-Romanian cultural exchanges between 1968 and 2007. Since October 2023, she has been a proud member of the artistic collective Teatrul Postnațional Interfonic, and since 2024, an associate lecturer at the West University of Timișoara (German-language Acting department).

This cultural project is co-funded by the National Cultural Fund Administration (AFCN). The project does not necessarily represent the position of the National Cultural Fund Administration. AFCN is not responsible for the content of the project or how the project results may be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the beneficiary of the funding.

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