Gabriela Dumitrescu was born in Romania. Due to political motives, her parents had to escape the Ceausescu regime. She and her family emigrated to West Germany.
While still at school, she began a special early study program for music (piano) at Musikhochschule Köln with Prof. Gediga. Gabriela Dumitrescu went on to study art history at Albert-Ludwig University in Freiburg, as well as dance and choreography at London Contemporary Dance School in London (GB), receiving her BA (Hons) from the University of Kent. During her dance training, she studied singing with Lynda Richardson and became part of the London Philharmonic Choir, performing at venues like the Royal Albert Hall and the Barbican Center.
As a freelance choreographer, Gabriela Dumitrescu created works at opera houses like Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin, Theater Freiburg/Breisgau and Opernhaus Halle. She also worked as choreographer and movement director for theater productions at houses like Schauspielhaus Köln, Theater der Stadt Basel and Shakespeare Company Berlin.
Furthermore, she choreographed the dance scenes for Roland Emmerich´s feature feature film „Anonymous", working with Joely Richardson and Jamie Campbell-Bower. Inspired by this work, Dumitrescu began experimenting with dance and movement in video format. Out of this work, she created the Doinas, performative miniatures that allow a universal reading of personal experiences. In order to develop the Doinas formally and in content, she worked with screenshots of already existing Doinas. Soon, she discovered photography as a source of inspiration and as another means of artistic expression. While the Doinas examine her inner world, Dumitrescu´s photos document her outer world. In her collages, she examines the relationship of the self and of the body to its environment and the way the one might relate to the other.