Take Me Somewhere | Cherish Menzo (Netherlands/Belgium) - FRANK

Part of Take Me Somewhere Festival, 15 to 26 October 

Somewhere between ritual, the apocalypse, and the carnival, where the flesh can deviate and corrupt to challenge narrated identity until it bursts and becomes unbearable.

Fresh from a knockout run and critical acclaim at Kunstenfestivaldesarts, FRANK arrives as the bold final chapter in Cherish Menzo’s trilogy.

FRANK, as in open, honest, direct, and short for Frankenstein, observes that which the speaking being has placed not "in here" but "out there" on the other side of the border.
 As the quest to distort the familiar continues, Cherish Menzo examines the monster's figure, its various relations to the idea of humanhood, and the horrors these relations entail.

More so than (re)producing a physical or visual portrayal of the monster, Cherish Menzo is interested in how the monstrous is a reification and metaphoric embodiment of the beliefs and narratives that terrify, horrify, and yet also attract us.

Cherish researches the process of bringing the pre-monster stage or horror into a metaphoric embodiment and for that process to be the generator of image-making and the performative, sonic, and text material that plays with the tension of ambivalence, uncanniness, enigma, uncertainty, and corruption.

The performance space fabulates on the Baka Gorong, a place located at the back of the former plantations and in front of the wetlands, where enslaved people in Suriname secretly went to carry out Winti rituals – demonized under Dutch colonial rule – and to consider fleeing.

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 how something gradually breaking down and getting less or worse can be another attempt to distort a form or information.

FRANK will be the closing of a trilogy. 
A trilogy that does not consist of chronological storytelling or a series of events, but maybe more a trifold of spaces, universes, fictions, and conversations that regard Blackness, bringing the Black body to the centre and attempting to explore the African Diaspora's multi-intersections in recognizable, metaphorical, and abstract ways.

Recommended for ages 14+

Audience notes
Includes reference to death and killing
Contextual reference to colonialism and enslavement

Sensory notes
Loud Music
Sudden Loud Sounds
Full Blackout
Flashing Lights
Strobe
Smoke or Haze
Falling or Flying Objects
Audience Interaction
Close Proximity to Bodily Fluids (sweat)
Ear Defenders, Ear Plugs and Dark Glasses will be available

ACCESS 

This performance is spoken in English and French with BSL Interpretation by Ali Gordon. The Interpreter will be in a fixed position on stage. Text is used in a poetic way and subtitles are purposely not always included.

Limited Sub Pacs are available from Tramway Box Office.

Essay and written translations of performance texts in English, Dutch and French are available on a dedicated website here.

Visit the Take Me Somewhere Festival Access Page

Artist Bio

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.

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.

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.

ABOUT GRIP

GRIP was founded in 2014 by choreographer and dancer Jan Martens and manager Klaartje Oerlemans.

From 2023 on, GRIP choreographers Femke Gyselinck, Jan Martens, Cherish Menzo, and Steven Michel act together as artistic directors. They do so in close dialogue with Klaartje Oerlemans and Rudi Meulemans, who coordinates and facilitates the dialogue between the four makers in his role of artistic coordinator.

Credits

Concept And Direction: Cherish Menzo

Creation And Performance: Malick Cissé, Mulunesh, Omagbitse Omagbemi

Sound Design: Maria Muehombo a.k.a M I M I

Video Design: Andrea Casetti

Sound And Video Engineering: Arthur De Vuyst

Set Design: Morgana Machado Marques

Lighting Design: Ryoya Fudetani
Dramaturgy: Johanne Affricot, Renée Copraij
Costumes: Cherish Menzo

Text: Khadija El Kharraz Alami, Cherish Menzo

Artistic Advice: Khadija El Kharraz Alami, Nicole Geertruida
Technician On Tour: Pieter-Jan Buelens, Arthur De Vuyst, Ryoya Fudetani, Hadrien Jeangette

Graphic Design: Nick Mattan


Thanks To: Mildred Caprino, Anne Goedhart, Rodney Frederik & Winti Formation “Krin Ati,” Daryll Geldrop, Ernie Wolf, Sandra Menzo, Shavelie Menzo, Madeleine Planeix-Crocker, Sarah Garnaud, Alice Bröker, Johanna Cool

Photo by Bas de Brouwer