'We are in an alien world. Only awkward movement is possible.' (Bayo Akomolafe) With FRANK-short for Frankenstein -choreographer Cherish Menzo explores the figure of the monster. Beyond a mere physical or visual representation, she studies the monstrous as an embodiment of beliefs and narratives that frighten and horrify us, but also fascinate us. Distortion is used as a choreographic leitmotif to generate movement material, and as a means of disrupting dance, throwing the structure loose. Cherish Menzo explores how decay and gradual deterioration can affect one's movements.
The performance space fabulates on the Baka Gorong, a place at the back of the former plantations and in front of the wetlands, where enslaved people in Suriname secretly went to perform Winti rituals-demonised under Dutch colonial rule-and to consider fleeing.
Together with Omagbitse Omagbemi, Mulunesh and Malick Cissé -performers from different generations - she creates a ritualistic, apocalyptic and carnivalesque performance. Constructed identities are questioned, bodies deviate to the point of becoming unbearable and bursting. The dancers interpret their place in the world with disjointed, broken-down movements as the set collapses around them. In a shaky, faltering world full of unlikely, gruesome and violent events, the performance evokes memories of early horror films and that grim feeling, that flicker in the dark.
