Monkey Mind Feest

Monkey Mind Feest – what a party!

Last Saturday July 1st, we presented Lisi Estaras‘ creation Monkey Mind Feest at Ostend’s contemporary dance festival Dansand!

This one time event was a dance party in the spirit of Lisi’s Monkey Mind choreographic material. With this material she aims to convert the endless chatter inside your head into movement.

Over the course of a season, working with different audiences, and supported by a research grant of the Flemish Government, she has devised the ‘Monkey Mind’ methodology.

De Grote Post organized a masterclass series for 50+dancers, art school MUDA invited Lisi for a project with their students, Lisi continued to research the material with Platform K‘s professional dancers with down-syndrome Hannah, Kobe and Fernando and with several other professional dancers.

Putting this research to good use, she’s created a unique party in the public space including people from all different research episodes especially for Dansand!

a few impressions

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in the belgian newspapers

De Standaard published a lovely interview with Lisi. You can read it here.

De Morgen published an article about the collaboration between Lisi and Platform K. You can read it here.

Het laatste nieuws published a small article about the collaboration between De Grote Post and Lisi. You can read it here.

credits

Choreography Lisi Estaras | Dancers Irene Rousolillo, Fernando Amado, Hannah Bekemans, Kobe Wyffels, Fons Dhossche, Magda Ral, Eric Steyaert, Marjan Colombie, Lief Weuts, Kries Hoornaert, Ingeborg Vandenbulcke, Chris Soenen, Lut Van Malderen, Caroline Slabbinck, Mieke Boonen, Catherine Barbez, Lieve Polet, Nadine Machtelinckx & Sam Louwyck| Music Bartold Uyttersprot | Dramaturgy & Artistic assistance Sara Vanderieck & Quan Bui Ngoc | Production De Grote Post | With the support of De Provincie West-Vlaanderen en KAAP | With the collaboration of Platform K & Monkey Mind vzw

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Catch us at this summer’s festivals!

For those who are curious to discover my dramaturgical / outside eye work: it is all over the festivals this summer!

You can find Lisi Estaras‘ work in Ostend’s summer festivals. She will create a special version of La Esclava and the unique Monkey Mind Feest for Dansand at the beginning of July and will present Monkey Mind in  Theater aan Zee at the end of that same month.

Serge Aimé Coulibaly will present his Kalakuta Republik in Africologne, Tanzhaus NRW, MARS, Festival de Marseille, Festival d’Avignon, Theaterfestival Boulevard, Tanz im August and Kampnagel Sommerfestival. In the fall he will continue touring the piece all over Europe. You can find all announced performances here.

Naïf Productions will also be present with their latest creation La Mécanique des Ombres in the Festival d’Avignon  in July.

And last but not least Bára Sigfúsdóttir and Eivind Lønning will share their beautiful TIDE with Julidans’ audience in Amsterdam.

I hope you will catch up with us somewhere!

Check this calendar to discover where and when you can find us. A simple click on the list next to it will bring you to the organizer’s websites.

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When I look at a Strawberry, … – the word is out.

© Sara Vanderieck

We are proud to announce that De Grote Post and KAAP will present the very first try-outs of this new creation on September 23rd ’17.

In When I Look at a Strawberry, I Think of a Tongue dancers/choreographers Lisi Estaràs and Serge Aimé Coulibaly, musician/composer Mirko Banovic and dramaturg Sara Vanderieck combine their practices in a multidisciplinary narration about their separate pasts and the common present. The starting point for this creation is Goliarda Sapienza’s novel The art of Joy. Its questionings about social and political engagement, personal growth, parenting, sexual desire and aging are the pretext to meet each other.

These performances will be for a very limited audience only so don’t hesitate to get your tickets here or here. 

When I look at a Strawberry, … – the word is out. Read More »

Save the date – Monkey Mind Feest will be presented on Dansand 2017

Monkey Mind! is throwing a dance party. Choreographer Lisi Estaras aims to convert the endless chatter inside your head into movement. Over the course of a year, and working with different audiences, she has devised the ‘Monkey Mind’ methodology. Putting this research to good use, she’s creating a unique party in the public space especially for Dansand 2017 on July 1st!

Choreography Lisi Estaras | Dancers Nicolas Vladyslav, Irene Rousolillo, Fernando Amado, Hannah Bekemans, Kobe Wyffels, the 50+dacers from the Monkey Mind in je lijf workshop and special guests | Music Bartold Uyttersprot | Dramaturgy Sara Vanderieck | Production De Grote Post | With the support of De Provincie West-Vlaanderen and KAAP | Thanks to Platform K

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Kalakuta Republik will close the Festival de Marseille 2017

Yesterday the festival‘s director Jan Goossens presented the program for the 2017 edition of the festival with this editorial:

Marseille, the world, artists and local residents imagining and creating a city and a future together: that’s what the ambitious and generous 22nd edition of the Festival de Marseille is all about. The beating heart of the programme is dance, underlining our deep-seated conviction that those taking part in the Festival, in all their diversity, will forge new connections in this complex, fascinating city—not forgetting the other disciplines that make contemporary culture what it is today: theatre, music, and film.

Held from 15 June to 9 July, the Festival offers a wealth of experiences to share with some of the greatest names in contemporary performing arts from the four corners of the world: Brett Bailey from Capetown, Rabih Mroué from Beirut, Rimini Protokoll from Berlin, Nacera Belaza from Paris and Algiers, Bruno Beltrão from Rio de Janeiro, Julien Gosselin from Calais, Bouchra Ouizguen from Marrakech, and Serge-Aimé Coulibaly from Bobo-Dioulasso.

The Festival also features local artists creating a form of dialogue that only culture now seems capable of:  Dorothée Munyaneza, Georges Appaix, Eric Minh Cuong Castaing and Eva Doumbia. What’s more, hundreds of locals will be taking part in a series of shared initiatives with major international artists: 100% Marseillewith Rimini Protokoll (Berlin), Rito de Primavera inspired by Stravinsky with José Vidal (Santiago de Chile), and Compagnie Compagnie with Jérôme Bel (Paris). All this adds up to three weeks of shows co-produced by the Festival—including some not-to-be-missed French and European premieres!

What the 22th edition of the Marseille Festival would like to share most of all is the idea that Marseille and the world are one. The world can be found in this city, and Marseille is the world. This means that the Festival de Marseille has to be both local and global—so come and enjoy our « glocal » programme, in all its diversity!

From 15 June to 9 July, in a host of different venues throughout Marseille, at very affordable prices, these shows, concerts, events and debates are all driven by a single aim: to show that Marseille is a city that keeps its promises.

Kalakuta Republik will be presented on July 9th. Serge Aimé Coulibaly contributed to the press conference with a small personal performance.

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Kalakuta Republik is getting good reviews!

Click on the name of the journal to read the full article.

La Libre Belgique

“In Kalakuta Republik, Serge Aimé Coulibaly magically combines music, dance and the African revolution.“

Guy Duplat – 17/02/2017

Sceneweb.fr

“A wonderful ramble that exudes both rebelliousness and love.”

 

“Kalakuta Republik dances on a volcano, one of lost revolutions and of peoples who will ultimately rebel. The political and poetic performance becomes even more exuberant in the second half, when it celebrates taking the reins in an atmosphere that is reminiscent of a discotheque – or of the end of the world. Some of the scenes are positively magical…”

Philippe Noisette – 11/03/2017

 Delibere.fr

“Dance has triumphed by borrowing elements from all repertoires, just as Fela did (jazz, Yoruba rhythms, funk, etc.) and it lays bare the personality of every member of the company. … And what is so fascinating here is the ‘broken’ dance that re-asserts itself time and time again against a backdrop of profound longing.”

 

“This will not be an overtly African performance, but one in which politics is reflected through bodies. One is influenced by the traditional repertoire, another by discotheque-style hip-swinging, yet another by jazz, not to mention the dance that is dreamt up along the way with no awareness of its provenance.”

Marie-Christine Vernay – 15/03/2017

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Kalakuta Republik will be presented in the Avignon Festival 2017

Inspired by Fela Kuti, the Nigerian composer, saxophonist, conductor, political activist and inventor of Afrobeat, the Belgian-Burkinan choreographer Serge Aimé Coulibaly has created a new performance in which politics is more than just a vague dramaturgical undertone.

There are six dancers on stage, and this soon becomes seven. From them burgeons an endless series of variations of figures and movements, which serve as metaphors for the compelling urgency to live… A political reflection that races through the body. A language of movement marked by the traditional repertoire, by grooving in nightclubs and by jazz, but which ultimately becomes an entirely new dance that dashes onward, unencumbered by its origins.

The stage setting alludes both to our current political and social world and to the Shrine, a hybrid and mythical place, both temple and nightclub, where Fela Kuti sang about hope and uprising after saying a prayer with his audience. Kalakuta Republic was the name of his residence, which was located on the outskirts of Lagos and which he regarded as an independent republic. The spirit of Fela, figurehead of the opposition in West Africa and a source of inspiration for many, is a central thread running through this performance.

Serge-Aimé Coulibaly himself plays the role of the narrator. Does he identify with Fela Kuti? Or is he simply himself, a committed artist caught up in a troubled world and simultaneously impressed by the effect of today’s young Burkinans’ boundless longing for freedom, which has led to a major revolution?

As Slavoj Zizek has been warning the many anti-government movements for years: it is not particularly difficult to whip up a crowd and to shout that things have to change. The important thing is what happens on the day after the uprising.

Kalakuta Republik is neither a biography of Fela Kuti, nor a musical showcasing the musician’s work. It is a thrilling study of artistic engagement and what this can set in motion. A performance with an infectious energy. A little piece of Africa without clichés. An Africa in a globalised world to which Serge-Aimé Coulibaly and his generation of artists are committed and to which they want to draw attention.

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