The Performing Arts – Choreography specialisation within the Faculty of Theatre at the George Enescu National University of Arts, Iași (UNAGE Iași), in partnership with the Institute for Multidisciplinary Research in Art (ICMA), organised, between 9 and 14 June 2025, at the Uzina cu Teatru Hall (Theatre Factory) of the Vasile Alecsandri National Theatre, Iași, the Constructing Motion workshops led by choreographer Miriam Engel.

Miriam Engel is an Israeli choreographer, dancer, actress, and arts entrepreneur based in Jerusalem. She has been creating and performing for twenty years in Israel, Europe, the United States, the Far East, and Africa, and has initiated international projects and major collaborations worldwide. Engel is the founder of Angela Dance Company and of the LoveINg Your City project, and the founder and director of the Jerusalem International Solo Dance Festival (JISDF).

As a Jerusalem resident, Engel draws artistic and intellectual inspiration from the city’s complexity and multicultural character, where she works as a cultural entrepreneur. Her work is characterised by distinctive interpretations and designs, and by rich, virtuosic performance that translates the Israeli experience, in all its diversity, into interactive and universal works.

In 2011, Engel founded Angela Dance Company in Jerusalem, an artistic body that serves as a home for contemporary practice and develops a repertoire of original dance works alongside international, interactive, and site-specific projects. Its main centre of activity is in Jerusalem’s Katamonim neighbourhood, where it cultivates a deep connection with the community and promotes educational initiatives in dance, platforms for artists, and a home for professional training and enrichment.

In recent years, Engel’s principal artistic projects have been the Jerusalem International Solo Dance Festival (JISDF) and the interactive concept project LoveINg Your City, a unique initiative she developed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The project maps and documents true love stories from the city through original dance and performance work in public, staged, and digital spaces. LoveINg JERUSALEM was originally presented in Jerusalem and was subsequently adapted into a digital platform disseminated in Israel and internationally as an artistic and cultural document. Following the success of the project, a parallel initiative was produced in Turkey (LoveINg ANKARA), and the format is expected to expand to other cities around the world in the near future.

Engel serves as a member of the Executive Committee of EMI (the Association of Israel Artists), as CEO of the Merhav Mahol Association, and as a member of the Choreographers Association, and previously served as artistic director of a dance series at Beit Mazya. In addition to her original productions and numerous performances, she is invited to companies and festivals around the world as a guest artist, creating, performing, lecturing, and teaching her repertoire of works and her distinctive technique. She is also a regular guest at DePaul University (Chicago) and at the SADC Center (Berkeley, California).

Workshops coordinated by Associate Professor Lorette Enache, held as part of the project International Promotion of UNAGE Iași in the Digital Environment and the Consolidation of European Values in Arts Education through Collaboration with Partner Institutions, funded by the Romanian National Commission for the Financing of Higher Education (CNFIS) through the Institutional Development Fund (FDI), under grant no. CNFIS-FDI-2025-0300.

Project Director: Professor Cristian Nae.