bio
www.charlottevandeneynde.be
Born in Belgium in 1975.
Charlotte Vanden Eynde studied classical dance, modern dance, jazz dance, Spanish dance and African dance before starting a higher education dance course at the Hoger Instituut voor Dans in Lier (Belgium) in 1993.
Three years later she joined P.A.R.T.S., the Brussels school for contemporary dance headed by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. During her studies she created the short solo Benenbreken, the short duet Zij Ogen and the quartet Vrouwenvouwen, which she reworked after graduating in June 1999.
In 2000 she made the duet Lijfstof in collaboration with Ugo Dehaes and in 2001 she created two installation-performances: Ligging for Kaaitheater (Brussels) and Stand for de Brakke Grond (Amsterdam).
Since 2001 she collaborated three times with stage director Jan Decorte: for Amlett (choreography, dance and play), Cirque Danton (choreography) and Cannibali! (choreography, dance and play).
In the end of 2001 she was engaged as leading actress in Meisje, the first long feature movie by the Belgian movie director Dorothée van den Berghe, which was released in September 2002 and for which she received a best actress award in Amiens (F).
In 2002 she danced in Most Recent, a dance piece by Marc Vanrunxt, and she coached the presentation of the graduating collections of the third year students fashion of the Brussels' school La Cambre.
In 2002-2003 she followed a part-time education video- and film art at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp.
In October 2003 her most recent performance, MAP ME, premièred in artcentre Vooruit. MAP ME is a duet with Kurt Vandendriessche which is currently still on tour. For this creation she received the creation-award 2003 from the SACD-Belgium.
In November 2004 she started working on her upcoming creation for 6 dancers which will have its world première on April 15 during the Springdance festival in Utrecht and will later on be presented on the Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels in May 2005.
Charlotte Vanden Eynde's choreographies are closer to performance than to dance. For example, Lijfstof [Body material] is a series of tableaux vivants, which might equally be presented in a gallery or museum. Vanden Eynde's work is akin to that of choreographers like Meg Stuart, Jérôme Bel, Boris Charmatz, Tom Plischke and Vincent Dunoyer, who investigate the basics of dance, theatre and other art forms.
Vanden Eynde trained as a dancer at the Hoger Instituut voor Dans in Lier and at PARTS in Brussels. With Benenbreken [Breaking legs], Zij Ogen [They look / Them eyes] and Vrouwenvouwen [Folding women / Female folds] she succeeded in creating powerful productions even before she had finished her training.
In 1999 she graduated and set up the non-profit Kwaad Bloed, together with Ugo Dehaes (also a former PARTS student and dancer in Meg Stuart's Highway 101 and appetite).
With Dehaes she presented the duet Lijfstof in 2000.
Benenbreken, the solo Charlotte Vanden Eynde made during her final year at PARTS, is a sculptural choreography for legs, feet and toes. It at once set the tone for the rest of her work, in which the emphasis is on plastic rather than dancing values, on examining the body, the questioning of the norms of beauty, of the intimate, the vulnerable and non-virtuoso.
Zij Ogen, a duet with Sharon Zuckerman, is about how the female body is seen and eroticized, and about the woman's reaction to being looked at. The streamlined yet graceful choreography reproduces as it were the doubling of one body in two (very different) female dancers.
Charlotte Vanden Eynde's graduation piece at PARTS was Vrouwenvouwen, a choreography for four dancers. It is a study of the concept of 'woman', which is being folded in all directions like an origami paper. In this piece Vanden Eynde shows her passion for objects and materials for the first time. Even the bodies start to look like objects, when they form a tangle of hair and limbs.
In Lijfstof Vanden Eynde takes her fascination with objects, bodies and observation a step further. A thing becomes an extension of the body, the body a thing. This results in surprising, but also sobering images. In 2001 Vanden Eynde created two installation performances: Ligging [Position], a continuous improvisation on five mattresses, whereby images relating to intimacy are created and examined, and Stand, a loop performance whereby Vanden Eynde has three female dancers perform their acts, while she looks on.
On three occasions Vanden Eynde has worked with dramatist Jan Decorte for Het Toneelhuis. In 2001 she played the part of Ophélie in Amlett, for which she also choreographed two intimate and delicate dances (a duet with Decorte about love and death and a solo which symbolizes her death by drowning). In 2002 she made a choreography for ten young actors for Decorte?s Cirque Danton and in 2003 she created two graceful dance pieces for Cannibali!.
In 2002 she also appeared in Most Recent, a dance production by Marc Vanrunxt, and she made her debut as a film actress in Meisje [Girl] by Dorothée van den Berghe. In 2003 she appeared in Van den Heiligen Drien [The holy threesome], a short film by Karen Vanderborght; she is presently attending a part-time course of video and film at the KASK in Antwerp. Her show MAP ME premièred in October 2003.
Taken from PIGMENT. Currents in the Performing Arts in Flanders , 2003, Ludion & VTi, p 8-13
