DARKMATTER

Body can you become hypothetical, a galaxy, in full gear acceleration, a liquid star monster, failing to die?

In DARKMATTER, Cherish Menzo and her onstage partner Camilo Mejía Cortés look for ways to detach their bodies from the way they are perceived and the daily reality in which they move. Among other things, they look up to the sky, at dark matter and at black holes that meet and collide to give birth to a new, (afro)futuristic and enigmatic body.

DARKMATTER wants to get rid of the biased way of looking at one’s own body, at that of the other, and at the stories we attribute to them. Together, they throw their bodies into a complex conversation that they want to both enter into and transcend – a duality that feeds the performance.

Just as in her previous project, JEZEBEL, Menzo stretches her movement language further by applying the Chopped and Screwed method to her movement language. A remix technique from hip-hop music in which the tempo is sharply reduced. By stretching the notions of time, the register changes and the performing body manages to generate new readings. DARKMATTER wants to create a thorough reshuffle 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.

AUDIENCE ADVISORY
This performance contains strobe effects as well as three extended blackouts. The soundscape may be perceived as particularly intense; earplugs are available from staff. Please also note that there is nudity on stage.

ABOUT CHERISH MENZO

Cherish Menzo is a Dutch choreographer and performer recognized for her radical, physical, and socially engaged artistic approach. Trained at Amsterdam’s Urban Contemporary (JMD) School of Arts, she has made her mark by collaborating with major figures of the contemporary scene, including Akram Khan, Eszter Salamon, Lisbeth Gruwez, Jan Martens, and Olivier Dubois.

For several years, she has been creating her own works, blending dance, performance, and music through a resolutely experimental lens. Her piece JEZEBEL (2019), inspired by the hip-hop video vixens of the 1990s, won both the Amsterdam Fringe Award and the International Bursary Award. It was also nominated for the BNG Bank Theaterprijs, and featured at Nederlandse Dansdagen as well as at the Theater Festival in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Her creation DARKMATTER (2022), a duet with Camilo Mejía Cortés, continues her exploration of black bodies and their representations, through a striking aesthetic where beauty, strangeness, and sound distortion intersect.

Cherish Menzo conceives each work as an open-ended process of research in motion. Her practice challenges perception, identity, and norms by deconstructing familiar images. Today, she is recognized as one of the most distinctive and powerful voices in European contemporary dance.

PRIZES, NOMINATIONS AND SELECTIONS

• Winner – BNG Bank Theater Prize (2023)

• Winner – Dutch Drama Jury prize for Best Direction (Nederlandse Dansdagen) Maastricht (2023)

• Selected – Theater Festival The Netherlands (2023)

• Selected – Theater Festival Belgium (2023)

• Nominated – VSCD Mime/Performance award (Nederlandse Dansdagen) Maastricht (2023)

• Nominated – VSCD Swan Award Most Impressive Performance (Nederlandse Dansdagen) Maastricht (2023)

• Nomination – Flemish Actors Guild Theatre Award 2023 (Under 35 category)