CLOUD TALKS: DECOLONIZATION & DANCE

In conversation with Fazle Shairmahomed

Together we look into Monique’s long history of being trained as a dancer, which comes together with personal histories moving through ancestries, different traditions and aesthetics, both black and white. Moving between formal training, nightclubs, the Dutch National Ballet, into her work as choreographer. What does “domesticated artist” mean to Monique?

ABOUT CLOUD TALKS

CLOUD danslab is also moving online! In this series from our dance studio in Den Haag we have conversations with different people from the dance world from a decolonial perspective. We talk about taboos, hybrid dance, transgressive behavior, the value of categorizing dance in boxes such as ‘amateur and professional’, ‘contemporary and urban’, from underground dance to dance in theaters, museums and beyond… How does dance move now, then, and very soon?

Host: Fazle Shairmahomed

Visuals: Andrie van de Kuit

Sound: Mariam el Maslouhi

ABOUT MONIQUE DUURVOORT

Monique Duurvoort is an independent artist born in Amsterdam, with (as far as she knows) roots in Friesland, Suriname and the US. In her work she explores themes around (cultural) identity, self-image, heritage and symbolism. She was trained as a professional dancer at the Academy for Theater & Dance in Amsterdam and danced with the Dutch National Ballet for 13 years. After that she studied Arts and Cultural Management at Erasmus University in Rotterdam but moved on to become a choreographer. Over time she gradually expanded my artistic expression by combining dance with other art disciplines. In dance, she is best known for her crossover movement vocabulary using elements of both academic and hip hop dance styles (the latter which she came to know throughout her extensive underground clubbing life which started from the age of 14).