DARKMATTER

In DARKMATTER, Cherish Menzo and her onstage partner Camilo Mejía Cortés explore ways to detach their bodies from public perception and their daily reality. Among other references, they look up to the sky, at dark matter, at black holes that meet and collide to give birth to a new, (afro)futuristic and enigmatic body. Menzo rids themselves of biased ways of looking at one’s own body, at that of the other, and at the stories we attribute to bodies in general. Together, Menzo and Cortés throw their bodies into complex conversations that they want to both enter into and transcend—a duality that feeds the performance. As in her previous project, JEZEBEL, Menzo stretches her movement vocabulary further by “Chopping and Screwing” her choreography via the Houston, Texas hip-hop remix technique in which the tempo of a song is sharply reduced and the pitch is lowered. By stretching the notions of time, the performing body generates new readings and perceptions. In DARKMATTER, Menzo aims to create a thorough reshuffling of our atoms, looking for a new form for—and way of looking at—our body and the complex outside world to which it relates.

Content Warnings: This performance includes stroboscope effects, extensive black-outs, regular nudity. The music in this work is loud and can be perceived as intense; earplugs will be available at the door. Notes for Patrons Who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing

Production intended for mature audiences.

Duration: 90 minutes

“This piece makes you curious to see and know everything about Cherish Menzo, who imposes a presence on the stage that borders on that of a video game. She blurs the lines and makes our eyes bug out.” - Amélie Blaustein Niddam, Toute La Culture

Cherish Menzo is a choreographer and dancer working from Brussels and Amsterdam. In 2013 she graduated from The Urban Contemporary (JMD) at the ‘Hogeschool voor de Kunsten’ in Amsterdam. In her work, Cherish mainly looks at how the body can transform itself on stage and physically represent different ideas. Implementing distortion, decay, and dissonance, Cherish attempts to detach bodies from forced perceptions and their daily corporeal realities, underlining the complexity and contradictory nature of images that seem recognizable at first glance. Glitching the “common” lexical, the lexical of the speaking being, she seeks the Uncanny, the Enigmatic, and the Monstrous to give shape to – and materialize speculative forms and fictions.

Camilo Mejia Cortés grew up in Cali, Colombia, and moved to Spain at age 14. After a dance education in Barcelona, he started at the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance. He was later part of Sound of the Trap, a production by the Bodhi Project and Cecilia Bengolea, and L'incoronazione di Poppea, directed by Jan Lauwers. Jan subsequently invited him into his Needcompany, where he participated in War and Turpentine, Isabella's Room, All the Good, and PIE (Probabilities of Independent Events). In 2020, he collaborated on The Sadness (Ula Sickle), Draconis Lacrimae (Pablo Esbert Lilienfeld and Federico Vladimir), and Spheres & Circles, Circles & Spheres (Isaiah Lopaz). Since May 2022, Camilo has been touring internationally with DARKMATTER, a project by Cherish Menzo, with whom he shares the stage. He is currently working on a personal project that explores the influence of salsa music in the construction of his artistic discourse by diving into this genre's artistic, socio-political, and spiritual aspects. By doing this, he will contribute to the archive of the experiences of the African Diaspora.

Concept and Choreography: Cherish Menzo

Creation and Performance: Camilo Mejía Cortés, Cherish Menzo

Production: GRIP, Frascati Producties (Francisca Alves, Hanne Doms, Anneleen Hermans, Eryn Kelly, Sam Loncke, Rudi Meulemans, Lize Meynaerts, Klaartje Oerlemans, Jennifer Piasecki, Charlotte Roosblad, Dominique Sikkema, Sylvie Svanberg, Mark Timmer, Ruud Van Moorleghem, Heske van den Ende, Petra van der Meulen, Pauline Van Nuffel, Nele Verreyken)

International Distribution: A Propic – Line Rousseau, Marion Gauvent

Co-production: Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels, BE), CCN-Ballet national de Marseille dans le cadre de l’accueil studio / Ministère de la Culture (FR), actoral festival (Marseille, FR), STUK (Leuven, BE), La Villette (Paris, FR), Festival d’Automne à Paris (FR), Beursschouwburg (Brussels, BE), De Coproducers (NL), Perpodium (BE)

In Collaboration with Trill (Leuven, BE), WijzijnDOX (Utrecht, NL)

With Financial Support from the Flemish Government, The Performing Arts Fund NL, Ammodo, Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government, Cronos Invest.

Supported by Dutch Culture USA, a program of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the United States.

Presented by UNDER THE RADAR and Performance Space New York

Photo by Bas de Brouwer