Dance Portfolio
The Black Lady - Isabelle Beernaert - 2024/2025
La Dame En Noir is a mystical, characterful and powerful total spectacle for young and old, with dance and live percussion; the heartbeat of the earth.
Dance, song, spoken word, decor, music, and visuals merge into a mystical and resonant experience. The sounds of organic drums, North African, Hebrew, Arabic, and Iberian music take you on a journey through all directions, cultures, and languages.
Isabelle Beernaert has noticed that in all her plays a mysterious female character appears on stage dressed in black. This made her realize that there was always a presence of something essential that she was always unconsciously investigating; the dark mother.
Black is pregnant with light
In black all colours are present. The black absorbs. Black is the colour of the peace, silence and darkness that is needed for a seed to germinate. A child in the womb is in the dark. Before spring comes, there is winter.
"There is only black light between the stars. It may seem that it's darkness, but it's really black light. There is no such thing as darkness. Darkness is a human concept. There's only black light between the stars." ―Frederick Lenz
Photo: Kim Vos
Costumes: Payal Khandwala
Particles of God - Isabelle Beernaert - 2022/2024
Isabelle Beernaert plays with extremes in this performance: forces of nature versus the transcendent. With an international cast, beautiful costumes and a luminous decor, the Flemish choreographer takes both her dancers and her audience on an intense journey. The common thread in Particles of God is the live music of conductor, composer and master violinist Peter Bogaert, who also acts in the story.
Photo: Kim Vos
Costumes: Cortana Brides
Trailer: (40) ISABELLE BEERNAERT - Particles of God (2022-2023) - YouTube
Oxytocin - Isabelle Beernaert - 2021/2023
For almost two years we were not allowed to touch, hold, caress or hug each other. There was a skin hunger: an intense desire for the cuddle hormone oxytocin. In the same period choreographer Isabelle Beernaert developed the eponymous performance OXYTOCIN.
Everyone needs oxytocin daily to feel happy. The lack of it during the corona pandemic had a negative impact on our mental and physical state. Beernaert uses dance to show how we have dealt with this unsatisfied desire by showing old fears and developing new feelings.
In an empty, sterile space, six dancers celebrate life. OXYTOCIN showed that the world is often not as dark as we think. You just have to want to see and feel the light.
Photo: Kim Vos
Trailer: (40) ISABELLE BEERNAERT ' OXYTOCIN ' (2021-2022) - YouTube
Book Launch Event - The Book of Ideals - July 2022
On July 5, 2022, the Dutch version of 'The Book of Ideals - How to change yourself and the world' by Marnix Geus was launched in Huize Frankendael, Amsterdam.
At this event, visitors could walk through the different chapters of the book; a multimedia experience through the different rooms of the unique historic country house.
Benjamin Herder and Sofie Konings danced an improvised duet together for the chapter 'Letting Go', written by co-author Fionnuala Herder Wynne.
Nude - Isabelle Beeraert - 2020/2022
In this eleventh performance by choreographer Isabelle Beernaert we were introduced to the ultimate vulnerability and beauty of being naked. A performance full of ethnic music, where primal power ran like a common thread.
Photo: Kim Vos
Costumes: Sarah Pacini
Let Me - Isabelle Beernaert - 2019-2020
Everyone walks their own path. But what is your unique path to walk? In today's performance society, you quickly experience the pressure to perform, fear of failure and disappointing others or the pressure of social media. You get to process hundreds of impressions per day, there is so much to see, so much to strive for. But is that who you are? And is what you see of others who they really are? How do you ensure that you continue to follow and express your own voice and live from authenticity?
For Laat me, choreographer Isabelle Beernaert stayed on home soil and was inspired by the grandmasters of Dutch-language chansons. Where her last productions were often characterized by international influences, Isabelle brought her choreographies for this production closer to home than ever.
Photo: Kim Vos
Costumes: Sarah Pacini
Trailer: (40) ' LAAT ME ' (Let me be) ... a production by Isabelle Beernaert (2019-2020) - YouTube
Tabula Rasa - Isabelle Beernaert - 2017/2018
Who wouldn’t want to start all over again and leave everything behind? To sweep our history, our decisions, our mistakes… off the table in one go! To continue like a blank slate. To forget the past, the future awaits… The state of pure potential, everything is possible again. Cleaned up after a violent storm, a purifying fire, a new start.
In the dance performance Tabula Rasa, choreographer and theatre maker Isabelle Beernaert tried to violently change the habits, to make a clean sweep, to seek freedom and to prevent us from remaining small. An interplay of different music styles and pure dance, with music by Muse, Armand Amar, Max Richter and Damien Rice.
Photo: Bob Karman