Performance diary in small towns

A cultural platform called Frilensăr launched an arts collab process to be carried out in four smaller towns in Romania this year

Ana-Maria Cononovici, 12.05.2026, 12:59

A cultural platform called Frilensăr launched the project “NIMENI_NIMIC.jurnal performativ în  târguri mici” (NOBODY_NOTHING.performance diary in small towns), an arts collab process to be carried out between March and September 2026 in four smaller cities in Romania, as well as in Bucharest’s Amzei area, where the project research and creation lab is located.

As a first step in the project, the artistic team comprising Irina Slate, Diana Nistor, Tiberiu Enache, and Daniel Chirilă develops a performance structure following a performance research lab focused on the community in Amzei Square, a lab organised at Green Hours cafe in Bucharest. This performance structure will be the starting point for the processes carried out subsequently in the four towns together with teenagers from each town and is the foundation for the performances that will be developed there, adapted to each local context.

The theater director and cultural project manager Irina Slate told us:

Irina Slate: “The Frilensăr Association has been working with teenagers for about 8 years. We previously had a project called the CEVA Educational Center for Performing Arts, in Târgu Neamţ, which created cultural and educational projects with teenagers in Târgu Neamţ for 8 years. And this is somehow a follow-up, in only several small communities. We will carry out the project in Târgu Neamţ, Târgu Lăpuș, Târgu Ocna and Târgu Frumos. What we discovered in the “Ceva” project is that teenagers who live in small towns most often think about leaving, they can’t wait to get rid of the community they have lived in, they are fed up with living in a small community, they want to come to a bigger city, with cultural opportunities, with social spaces, because most often these are missing in the towns where they come from. And with this project, on the one hand we want to create this cultural offer for teenagers and on the other hand to create a context in which they can look at the communities they belong to with different eyes. That is why the project is called “performance diary”, because together with at least 10 teenagers from each community we will organise a workshop at the end of which we will create a show together with them.”

Irina Slate detailed the work process within the project:

Irina Slate: “We will go to each of these communities, where we will meet for 10-14 days with groups of at least 10 teenagers, who will be selected by our institutional partners there, in each town, and at the end of the 10 days we will create this performance, which starts from the question, ‘What do we have here?’ In other words, for 10 to 14 days, we will do research with them, identify the most important parts of the town for them, learn about the history of the town, interview locals willing to talk to us. We will practically do a very broad documentation process, on the one hand realistic and on the other hand one that also appeals to their imagination, as we will also do dramatic writing exercises. We will encourage them to imagine certain situations and create characters based on their research. They will practice standing in the shoes of people from their community. They will practically try to get to know the city they live in every day and learn to see it with different eyes.”

The resulting show will be broadcast live simultaneously, so that all the locals can also see it in the performance hall, incorporating the one on the street, our interlocutor told us:

Irina Slate: “In Târgu Lăpuş we have worked with the Sub Stejar cultural association before, in Târgu Neamţ we are partners with Ţinutul Zimbrului, and in Târgu Ocna and Târgu Frumos our partners are the town halls. It is very important for us to work with the entities that are interested in this. Concurrently with these 10-14-day workshops, we will also create video diaries, featuring the characters Nobody and Nothing, who will walk around the city for 2 or 3 hours every day and interview people in the community. Some of these interviews will become a video diary for each city, which will be posted on our social media channels. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok under the name Frilensăr, and you can follow the project throughout its entire course. It has already started, we are now in the research stage in Bucharest. And between early June and late August we will go to these towns.”

The interactions are video recorded and will be part of a series of 12 episodes of performance diary, 3 episodes in each of the four towns. Also as part of the project, 4 written diary-type materials by Irina Slate and Daniel Chirilă will be made, documenting the artistic processes and the notes generated as a result of the research. (AMP)