Choreographer Cherish Menzo examines the figure of the monster in FRANK —short for Frankenstein. More than (re)producing a physical or visual portrayal of the monster, she is researching the monstrous as an embodiment of beliefs and narratives that terrify and horrify, and yet also attract us. Distortion is a choreographic leitmotif used to generate movement material and as a tool to devour the dance and loosen its structure. Cherish Menzo investigates the action of decay and how something gradually breaking down and becoming less or worse can affect one’s gestures. 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.

She is joined by Omagbitse Omagbemi, Mulunesh, and Malick Cissé—performing artists from different generations—to construct a performance between the ritual, the apocalypse, and the carnival, where narrated identities are challenged, where flesh can deviate and be corrupted until it bursts and becomes unbearable. The dancers express their standing in the world with incoherent, broken-down movement in a scenery that collapses around them. In an increasingly unstable world of hiccups and unlikely events, often gruesome and violent, we are reminded of early horror movies and this eerie feeling, the flicker in the dark.

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



   ​​​​​​​SURTITLES

   Jennifer Piasecki



   TECHNICIAN ON TOUR

   Pieter-Jan Buelens,

   Arthur De Vuyst,

   Ryoya Fudetani,

   Hadrien Jeangette



   GRAPHIC DESIGN

   Nick Mattan