To wrap up a wonderful year, Reactor is delighted to present the preview of the radio show "THE BRIDGE (collective projections for an uncertain future)", the very first co-production between Reactor and the National Radio Theatre! The text and direction are beautifully crafted by Oana Hodade, a multi-talented artist we've happily collaborated with on various projects, and we asked her to share some of her joy about working on this production. 

The heartwarming focus of my artistic work over the last few years has been human connection and the micro-communities we thrive in at different levels of intimacy – couples, families, groups of friends, social groups, and professional circles. It’s a deeply personal curiosity that spills over into my artistic observations. A beautiful question that guides my work lately is "how does it feel" – what emotional textures do things, people, and experiences have? In the realm of sound, my exploration revolves around the lovely concept of emotional landscapes and the deeper layers of ourselves we can access through music and melody.

The exciting questions I started with for this show are: can we imagine a collective future? If so, how wonderfully diverse do its multiple versions sound? I really wanted to open up a dialogue with others, rather than daydreaming about this theme all by myself! So, we started with an inspiring storytelling workshop led by Ana Maria Ciobanu from DOR, which opened up countless bright ideas about our future as individuals, as a group, and as a society. Together with the participants, we worked on many sticky notes, which meant that by the end of the workshop we had a magnificent pile of fragmented ideas, feelings, and short thoughts. From these, we happily composed the text of the show – a delightful detail of our process that mirrors one of the show's core ideas: the future is born from our shared intentions and actions!

On one hand, I wrote the text with the magical atmosphere of the show in mind. Right from the start, I wanted to leave plenty of room for the music composed by Vlaicu Golcea, which plays just as vital a role in the journey as the ideas shared through the words. Most of the time, our impressions aren't articulated in words, but through other wonderful channels – and here, it's the entire atmosphere created by the music and sound design. On the other hand, leading this exciting process as playwright and director gave me the creative freedom to warmly integrate the wonderfully diverse suggestions and inputs of those who interacted with the material at different stages. I was particularly inspired – coming back to the idea of collective projections – by where this openness leads us and how beautifully it shapes the show.

I believe responsibility is a powerful and inspiring word when we think about the future. Sometimes we navigate gloomy scenarios of what lies ahead with a surprising passivity, as if it doesn't affect us, or as if we aren't directly responsible for what we build for ourselves and the generations to come. But perhaps we just need a spark of inspiration to awaken our spirits and move us to action, helping us realize that the future isn't some distant utopian land behind a portal, but something we create with every step and every breath. What I hope to achieve with this emotional journey is to gently spark some thoughts and, hopefully, a wonderful impulse to act!

Unlike a stage production, here we work exclusively with sound – which means pure emotional material! The actors' voices become a beautiful creative medium, just like the music. A radio play offers a wonderfully intimate and personal connection with the listener – it comes to life through your openness to let yourself be carried away by what you hear, activating your own imagination and feelings. There will be as many unique versions of this show as there are listeners, and each one will be beautiful and different!

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