“The Blade of Words”: The Start of the Women’s History Month Celebrations at RCI

Updated: Jul 5

Performance, book launch & conversation, exhibition

About the Event

As the Women’s History Month is about the begin, we inaugurate a string of special events dedicated to spectacular female achievements in the arts with an evening of performance, poetry and photography presenting Romanian-born poet and women`s health clinician Anca Stuparu and Swiss-born interdisciplinary artist Marie Christine Katz in an artistic dialogue full of verve and creativity. The event, organized in partnership with the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York, is occasioned by the apparition of the bilingual (Romanian & English) volume The Blade of Words, a collaboration between Anca and Marie Christine, and also marks the 1st of March celebration, Romania’s beloved tradition of Martisor, the token of love and rebirth.

Program

7:00 pm – 7:15 pm: Performance #DancingAloneWithMyShadow by Marie Christine Katz

7:15 pm – 7:30 pm: Opening of the exhibition The Blade of Words presenting photographs by Marie Christine Katz

7:30 pm – 8:30 pm: Anca Stuparu and Marie Christine Katz in conversation

8:30 pm – 9:00 pm: Book signing

Time & Location

Friday, March 1 @ 7 PM | RCI New York | RSVP

Meet the Artists

ANCA STUPARU was born in 1974 in Lugoj, Romania. She has been living in New York since 1989, where she works as an Emergency Medicine and OB GYN clinician. Her first bilingual volume of poetry, De pe alt mal / From Another Shore, a volume on which she collaborated with sculptor and doctor Emil Silberman, was published in 2018 by Brumar Publishing House in Timișoara. Her poems have been translated into English, German, Spanish, Arabic and Uzbek. Anca Stuparu’s poems have appeared in literary magazines from Romania, Canada, Spain, Uzbekistan, Colombia, Lebanon, and she is often invited to radio and television shows about books and literature. In 2019, Anca Stuparu joined a humanitarian mission through African Cultural Exchange in Spanish Town, Jamaica, led by New York doctor Reginald Hughes as cultural ambassador. In 2020, she had the idea of writing, together with former elementary school colleagues, a collection of short stories entitled Povestirile unor școlari zvăpăiați. Amintiri pandemice [Tales of Some Fidgety Schoolkids. Pandemic Memories]. In the midst of the pandemic, in may 2020, Anca Stuparu opened a private practice and has collaborated since then with NYC Health and Hospitals, Montefore Medical Center, and EMU Health. As of that same year, 2020, she is a member of the Poetas del Mundo literary movement. In 2022, the German publishing house Pop Verlag published her bilingual Romanian-German poetry book Legea apei / Das Gesetz des Wassers [Law of Water], a volume on which she collaborated with the American artist Marie Christine Katz, whose works complement the poems. The volume was included in the publishing house’s selection for the International Book Fair in Frankfurt 2022, at which both authors participated in order to present their poems and works of art, respectively. Together with the Taiwanese poet Li Kuei-hsien, she edited the bilingual Mandarin-English volume of the Romanian physician and poet Adrian Sângeorzan entitled Masked World. Anca Stuparu’s poems are included in Daniel Ioniță’s bilingual anthology Romanian Poetry from Its Origins to the Present / Poezia românească de la origini și până în prezent.

MARIE CHRISTINE KATZ’s interdisciplinary practice focuses on performance and installation, addressing environmental and sociopolitical issues that affect us both regionally and globally. Her projects are process-based, developing over time. Public participation, story-sharing, and collaboration with artists of various disciplines are trademarks of her work. Performances are informed by passersby’s responses to the questions she poses. Marie Christine makes costumes and objects from various materials such as drier’s lint, fabric, hangers, yarn, wax, and wire. She uses video, photography, sound, and social media as media. She conducts workshops that encourage up-cycling and human interactions. Furthermore, she performs participatory walks with people from anywhere in the world via Twitter and Instagram Live. #DancingAlonewithMyShadowbegan during the pandemic and is an ongoing project. Walks, movement, dance, voice, text, and improvisations shape what she presents to the public. Studies: B.A. from Empire State College, three years in the full[1]time program at New York Studio School, and The Bruce Ornstein Theater classes. She continues to study voice, movement, theatre, and dance in various settings. Marie Christine has had the opportunity to perform with other artists as part of their projects, including Daniel Allen Nelson, the group Object Collection, and Susana Cook. In addition, she worked as a Super at The Metropolitan Opera and acted in plays, flms, and music videos. Residencies: Te Field (2010), Art Omi (2011). She was also a LMCC grantee. Exhibitions highlight: Bronx River Art Center, Velada Santa Lucía Venezuela, AiOP, Northside Art (with Te General Consulate of Switzerland), Brooklyn Arts Festival, Bergen International Festival, Chashama Gallery, Nicosia International Festival, Dixon Place Upstairs, NYSS. She performed at Ivy Brown Gallery, Local Project, Plaxall Gallery, 78 Jane and White Box. In addition, Marie Christine presented performance workshops at The Fountain House Gallery and Ivy Brown Gallery. She continues to conduct Let’s Take a (Virtual Twitter Guided) Walk, a project that began in 2009. Recently, LTAW #57 was presented in Oxford, England, as part of the Marmalade Festival, and #DancingAlonewithMyShadow as part of EnTránsito festival in Sant Antoni de Portmany, Ibiza. Swiss-born and raised, Marie Christine is a long-time NYC resident.