“If you really want to be understood, look for a good translator” – Marlene Dumas

#THISISBEAUTY is the new performance by choreographer and dancer Lisi Estaras who celebrates her 50th birthday with a solo. A solo as a 50-year-old dancer. A solo of 50 minutes. A work consisting of 50 thoughts.

What does the performer think while executing movements? Saying what we say is not always the same as showing what we say. In this creation, the fascination for the place of words and language in dance becomes the core of the piece. Inspired by the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein and other 50-year-old women, Lisi creates an autobiographical physical and verbal fiction that questions the absurd boundaries of communication.

“#THISISBEAUTY is a lot of things at once: A philosophical experiment, a dance training, a parody of the dance world and a vulnerable self-portrait. But fierce and untamable, like Estaras herself.” (Evelyne Coussens in De Morgen, August 1st, 2022)

After La Esclava (2015), Lisi creates another dance solo. Whereas La Esclava focuses on the memory of the (dancing) body as an engine for the narration of her own history, Lisi now focuses on the development of a personal linguistic writing. After The Jewish Connection Project (2019) and SONICO, the heart is the muscle we like to work out (2020), #THISISBEAUTY is Lisi Estaras’ 3rd creation under the wings of her own MonkeyMind Company.

Duration: 50 minutes

Premiere: 21.4.2022 at Kunstencentrum Nona, Mechelen (BE)

A production by MonkeyMind Company/MonkeyMind vzw. In coproduction with Festival Bits of Dance Brugge (B), MA Scène Nationale Montbéliard (F). Residencies KAAP Bruges, MA Scene Nationale Montbéliard, Tanzhaus Zürich, BAMP Brussel. With the support of CAMPO, les balllets C de la B en KC nona. With thanks to Rose, Liora, Mirko and Ludwig. Realised with project grant from the Flemish government.

“Encounter” is what the performance is about. Can five individuals with a mind of their own truly meet and connect? And to what extent is their encounter influenced by the fact that three of them have Down syndrome?

Lisi Estaras develops a choreographic pattern of dance phrases and frames that are the result of associative thoughts and impulses. She does this together with professional dancers Nico Vladyslav  (les ballets C de la B) Anna Calsina and three Platform-K dancers, Kobe Wyffels, Hannah Bekemans and Fernando Amado. Lisi translates the associations and improvisations into an abrupt and energetic dance language. She calls this way of working/thinking „the monkey mind“.

For Lisi, it is the first time that she works with people with a disability. She is truly fascinated by the internal life of Kobe, Hannah and Fernando, the three dancers with Down syndrome. But some barriers may have to be broken down in order to understand their way of looking at the world. Is it possible to make contact? To connect?

The creation is inspired by the book Autoportrait by Édouard Levé. In this book, Levé sets out his entire life, more or less at random, in a string of thoughts, statements and observations: “I am not beautiful. I am not ugly. I will never seduce somebody who wears Birkenstocks. I don’t like the big toe. Maybe I have talked to somebody who had maybe killed somebody. I like to say thank you. I would like to communicate without using words or gestures and just perceive everything that was in the brain of my interlocutor.”

Visually, Lisi felt inspired by the work of several photographers. Especially the raw, physical and sometimes absurd images from Diane Arbus were a direct source of inspiration for the visual language that Lisi developed for the dancers.

Monkey Mind is an intensive encounter between five dancers. They go beyond the expected and do not shy away from breaking conventions or even taboos.

Duration: 60 min.

A production by Platform-K. In coproduction with les ballets c de la b and CC De Grote Post. With the support of CAMPO, Cera, City of Ghent, Province East Flanders and the Flemish Authorities.