“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.