2025-2026 - Page 3 - La Rotonde

Camilo Mejia Cortés

Camilo Mejia Cortés grew up in Cali (Colombia) until he moved to Spain at 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 of ‘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 ~~DARK~~MATTER, 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.

Cherish Menzo

Cherish Menzo (°1988, The Netherlands) is a choreographer and dancer, who lives in Brussels and Amsterdam. In 2013 she graduated from The Urban Contemporary (JMD) at the ‘Hogeschool voor de Kunsten’ in Amsterdam.

Cherish has appeared in the work of Lisbeth Gruwez (THE SEA WITHIN), Jan Martens (THE DOG DAYS ARE OVER, any attempt will end in crushed bodies and shattered bones), Nicole Beutler (6: THE SQUARE), as well as collaborations with the likes of Akram Khan, Ula Sickle, Olivier Dubois and Eszter Salamon. Her powerful movement language also comes into its own in her own work, which tours internationally.

n 2016, she and Nicole Geertruida made EFES, an exhausting duet in which perfection and fallibility raise intriguing questions about how we like to see human beings. Sorry, But I Feel Slightly Disidentified… (2018), a solo made by Benjamin Kahn for (and with input from) Cherish, was an attempt to create a cartography of how we experience and meet the other. The seeds for this production were laid within the framework of Fraslab, after which an artistic dialogue between Cherish and Frascati Producties was initiated. Hereafter, Cherish made LIVE (2018), a cross between dance performance and pop/rock concert in collaboration with musician Müşfik Can Müftüoğlu.

In 2019 Cherish worked at Frascati Producties on JEZEBEL, a dance performance inspired by the phenomenon Video Vixen from the hip-hop clips of the 90s. Jezebel, a contemporary hip-hop honey, refuses to be defined by others and shakes off her image by deconstructing and redefining it.

In May 2022, during Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels, DARKMATTER premiered, a duet in which she and Camilo Mejía Cortés, with the help of the distorted rap choir, search for ways to detach their bodies and the daily reality in which they move from a forced perception. In the context of DARKMATTER , Cherish also gives workshops on the chopped & screwed technique, a process from hip-hop music that Cherish applies to the moving and performing body in the performance.
As part of Productiehuis Theater Rotterdam’s research programme Welcome To Our Guesthouse, Cherish made KILLED AND EXTENDED DARLINGS: SUBTLE WHINE in autumn 2023, an audiovisual performative landscape that embraces the subtle nuances and mechanics of gyration.

Cherish is currently working on FRANK – THE MONSTROUS AND HORROR THE 3RD PART OF A SPECULATIVE FABULATED TRILOGY (working title, premiering May 2025). In continuation of JEZEBEL and DARKMATTER , in FRANK, distortion will once again be one of the main ingredients to generate material. In addition, Cherish will look into the action of decay and discover how something gradually breaking down and getting less or worse can be another attempt to distort a form or information.

Cherish received the Amsterdam FRINGE and FRINGE International Bursary Awards 2019 with JEZEBEL. JEZEBEL was selected in 2020 for both the Dutch and Flemish Theaterfestival, which presented a jury selection of the best performances of the season and received the prestigious Charlotte Köhler award by the Prins Bernhard Foundation (Amsterdam) in 2022.

DARKMATTER was selected for both the Belgian Theater Festival and its Dutch counterpart. With DARKMATTER, Cherish received the BNG Bank Theater Prize (2023) and the Dutch Drama Jury prize for best direction (2023).

For her artistic work, she is interested in the transformation of the body on stage and in the “embodiment” of different physical images. 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.

Une île de danse

Fruit de la rencontre entre le chorégraphe Yvann Alexandre et la réalisatrice Doria Belanger, Une île de danse est un voyage sensoriel au cœur du mouvement dansé. Nourri par trente ans de création et les rencontres qui les ont portées, mêlant pièces de répertoire et conversations dansées, le film dresse autant le portrait d’un créateur que d’une communauté artistique, et de l’énergie qui en émane. Des bords de Loire aux toits de Tunis, en passant par les forêts enneigées du Québec, c’est tout un espace-temps aussi organique qu’humaniste qui se dessine sous nos yeux. Une ode à la rencontre, au lâcher-prise et à l’aventure collective, dans laquelle la danse, en s’affranchissant de la parole, invente un nouveau langage.

Le film est projeté dans le cadre de la programmation de Danser le Petit Champlain.

LA TIMIDITÉ DES CIMES

LA TIMIDITÉ DES CIMES est la nouvelle création de la compagnie Le fils d’Adrien danse. Cette co-création entre le chorégraphe Harold Rhéaume et le réalisateur Loup-William Théberge prend la forme d’un court-métrage de vidéo-danse nous plongeant dans un univers futuriste, où nous sommes témoins du parcours ambigu d’un être évoluant dans un univers en déclin. Avec en filigrane la disparition d’un certain rapport à la nature, cette œuvre cinématographique propose le regard introspectif d’un homme face à son parcours, ses multiples rencontres et son identité en tant qu’humain, mais aussi en tant qu’artiste.

Le film est projeté dans le cadre de la programmation de Danser le Petit Champlain.

Doria Belanger

Danseuse, chorégraphe et vidéaste, Doria Belanger s’est initialement formée à la danse contemporaine en tant que danseuse-interprète en France (formation Coline) et en Angleterre (London Contemporary Dance School), collaborant avec, entre autres, les Ballets C de la B, Mathilde Monnier, Emanuel Gat, Ben Duke ou plus récemment Mélanie Perrier au sein de la Compagnie 2Minimum.

Depuis 2015, elle développe un travail personnel qui se donne à voir sous la forme d’installations vidéo, de films dansés et de propositions chorégraphiques in situ. Ce chemin l’intéresse en ce qu’il permet de « capturer la danse », en conjurant la dimension éphémère du spectacle vivant tout en l’enrichissant d’une dimension picturale.

Sa première installation vidéo DONNEZ-MOI UNE MINUTE, projet fil rouge de portraits vidéo dansés, a déjà été présentée dans plus d’une vingtaine de théâtres et centres d’arts sensibles à la pluridisciplinarité, et notamment dans le cadre de la sélection officielle de Nuit Blanche Paris 2021.

Elle initie JOULE en 2020, une proposition consacrée à la notion d’énergie(s) mettant en résonance corps et environnement, qui se déploie sous la forme d’une installation vidéo et d’une pièce chorégraphique déambulatoire en espaces naturels. En 2023, parallèlement à la réalisation d’un nouveau film dansé, elle avance sur la création de son premier solo mêlant danse et vidéo live.

Everytime I come up for air (Solo pour Alice)

A powerful, yet delicate solo exploring the inner landscapes living in the mind of a performer in search of breath, space, and transformation.

Drawing inspiration from somatic practices and meditation, Daina Ashbee creates a deeply physical and intimate journey for Alice Vermandele, whom she met in Quebec City in 2019. The body becomes a vessel for deep memory: Alice seems to rise to the water’s surface, reach the shore, then inhabit an immense space — beyond the visible. In this ritual of presence, the choreographer seeks to awaken a liberated feminine energy through a unique choreographic language.

Known for her radical works at the crossroads of dance and performance art, Ashbee transforms the stage into a space of revelation and resilience.

Everytime I come up for air (Solo for Alice) is the second work part of the Maison pour la danse collection, a series dedicated to the longevity and accessibility of choreographic art.

The double bill is presented with the support of Première Ovation.

SENS

A sensory journey in close proximity with the performers of Le fils d’Adrien danse.

True to choreographer Harold Rhéaume’s human-centered approach, this new creation invites audiences into a sensory experience designed to awaken the senses.

Shaped by multiple residencies across Québec and France, the work questions the place of contemporary dance in society and the role of audiences in live arts. Presented in a fully immersive 360-degree setting, it offers a shared journey through choreographic movement — side by side, eye to eye.

In this matrix of sensitive creation, the boundaries between performers and spectators dissolve. Together, we experience a catharsis woven from voices, breath, subtle vibrations, and impulses. A vital moment of humanity where art becomes once again connection, presence, life.

Myokine

Myokine is a unifying work for seven performers exploring the body as a source of resilience, beauty, and hope. Myokines — molecules secreted by muscles in motion — are often called “molecules of hope” for the well-being and optimism they procure.

For Anne Plamondon, this process symbolizes the body’s redeeming role when faced with the growing complexity and turbulence of our times. It embodies the essential functions of releasing tension, emotions, and anxiety, while giving meaning to the imperfections that make life both strong and vulnerable.

Set to a hypnotic score and powered by energetic, spirited Canadian performers, this new creation speaks to the urgency to take action into this era we’re living in and the vital force of unity shown by a community in search of significance and purpose.