S A R A T A N

After receiving my Bachelor’s degree in Dance from the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point (UWSP) in the United States of America (Magna cum Laude), I went on to attend the contemporary dance school in Brussels – Performing Arts Research and Training Studios (P.A.R.T.S).

For the past 5 years, I have been working with the Brussels-based choreographer, Michele Noiret on 3 different creations, the first of which was a re-make of her seminal solo from 1989 entitled 'Vertebre'. I had also worked for many years, with the French company, Kubilai Khan Investigations, and have also had the pleasure of being an interprete for Maria Hassabi, Eszter Salamon, Leila Ka, Eric Minh-Cuong Castaing (Cie Shonen), Thierry de Mey, David Drouard (Cie DADR), David Hernandez, Anne-Linn Akselsen (Human Works), Isabella Soupart, Harris Gkekas and Serena Malacco.

My artistic practice, if I can humbly say I possess one, has come out of almost a decade of my working in the dance field as a dancer, performer, collaborator, and my favourite of term, an interprete. This is my preferred of terms because I find that it speaks the most closely to the process of first entering the studio, listening to the choreographer speak about his/her vision, allowing the content and emotions of the words spoken to sink in, whether deeply or superficially, and allowing myself – mind, body, and soul – to interpret and translate those words into movement, gestures or other types of vernacular.

There is a kind of surrender that is required, which I'm learning to be more and more at ease with, where in a selfless manner of creative brainstorming, ideas get proposed, kept or thrown away, all for the greater good, so to speak. Diving in wholeheartedly and trusting the process, are tenets by which I approach my work as an artist in the role of collaborator, as I take active part in helping a choreographer's vision reveal itself, one step at a time.

I have had the wonderful privilege of working with a plethora of choreographers with approaches and styles as different as they come. And each project I've had the chance to be a part of stays with me and informs all future projects I enter into. Like a greater artist at work upon me, each project chisels away at me and creates new facets, angles and folds in my dancing body, my understanding, my embodied knowledge etc., only to reveal a continually complexifying individual, always in the process of learning and perhaps more significantly, unlearning.

Where above I paid homage to la danse, I here want to do the same for le danseur/ la danseuse. The precious work we do as intermediaries may often be overshadowed or taken for granted, as we willingly surrender to the ultimate vision of the artist with whom we work for and with. And yet, we are more than just the clay, yarn, wood or paint which the artist manipulates or plays with – we are both object and subject with a whole range of creative agency. Having had the experience of working with dancers who know how to delicately traverse this boundary where the self does not always have a balanced place to settle upon, is inspiring and humbling, and I aim to learn from such examples.

The self, which dance, in my case, allows me to gain a more refined understanding of, is balanced with the self born from a practice of non-preciousness, where this self is allowed to die many deaths in order to bring new birth of something/someone, as yet unknown, only then to die again and reinvent itself. Yet, the new territories roamed only serve to carve, even deeper, the original self from which these treks were made. And so, there is simultaneously a wandering and deepening of the source, both of which can only happen in function of one another.

2024

3 February – Blackout Dialogs / KLAP, Marseille (FR)

https://www.kelemenis.fr/fr/les-spectacles/1383/blackout-dialogs

8,9 February – Blackout Dialogs / Theatre de la Cite, Paris (FR)

https://www.theatredelacite.com/programme/saison-2023-2024/blackout-dialogs 

15 March – Series Mania 2024 Conference

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp4dozrsEjA

27 April – sylvan / Dag Van de Dans 2024

7 June – (RE)percussion ID / Le 140, Brussels (BE)

https://www.le140.be/spectacles/repercussion-id/

8, 9 June – La chair de l'objet / Laval (FR)

14 June – Leila Ka / Paris (FR)

29 June – sylvan / Un Peu, Brussels (BE)

2023

12 January – Jukebox / Ducey-les-Chéris (FR)

13-16 January – l'oeil, l'oreille et le lieu / Purple Festival, Berlin (DE)

17 January – MU / ONYX Saint Herblain (FR)

30 January- 4 February – (RE)percussion ID / Les Riches-Claires Centre Culturel, Brussels (BE)

12 February – l'oeil, l'oreille et le lieu / Enghiens-les-Bains (FR)

10 March – Jukebox / Villeparisis (FR)

22 March – MU / Orleans (FR)

12 May – MU / Théâtre de l'Albarède, Ganges (FR)

27,28 May – La Chair de L'objet / La Reunion

7 September – Le Chant de Ruines / Rovereto (IT)

https://www.alfredoferreroeditore.com/it/event/le-chant-des-ruines-michele-noiret-compagnie-michele-noiret/

20-22 September – l'oeil, l'oreille et le lieu / Wuppertal (DE)

https://under-construction-wuppertal.de/en/programme/sept-2023/compagnie-michele-noiret

19 October – Le Chant des Ruines / Hasselt (BE)

https://www.theateraanhetvrijthof.nl/voorstellingen/dans/le-chant-des-ruines-theaterreis-naar-hasselt-cie-michele-noiret

25 October- 26 November – I'll Be Your Mirror / Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (HK)

https://www.taikwun.hk/en/programme/detail/maria-hassabi-ill-be-your-mirror/1253

8 December – l'oeil, l'oreille et le lieu / Cannes (FR)

https://www.cannesticket.com/fr/spectacles/festival-de-danse-cannes-cote-dazur-france-danse/cie-michele-noiret 

2022

8 January – MU

13, 14 January – Jukebox / L'Avant Seine Theatre de Colombes (FR)

15 January – Jukebox / Theatre Jean-Arp, Clamart (FR)

18 January – MU / Théâtre de l'hôtel de ville a Saint-Barthelemy d'Anjou (FR)

23-27 January – Le Chant des Ruines / Theater Freiburg (DE)

28 January – MU / Théâtre Les 3 Chênes, Loiron-Ruilles (FR)

4 February – MU / L'espace 1789, Saint Ouen (FR)

22 March – MU

25 March – MU / Villages en Scène (FR)

21 April – Le Chant des Ruines / L'Estive- Scene Nationale de Foix et de l'Ariage

17 May – Le Chant des Ruines / Theater Heilbronn (DE)

18 May – Jukebox / La Faïencerie, Creil (FR)

17 May – Le Chant des Ruines / Theater Heilbronn (DE)

4 June – Jukebox / Erba (IT)

18 June – SHWAG / RASAB, Brussels (BE)

1-4 September – l'oeil, l'oreille et le lieu (premiere) / Stormen Kulturhaus, Bodo (NO)

8-12 September – l'oeil, l'oreille et le lieu / Baerum Kulturhaus, Sandvika (NO)

15 September – l'oeil, l'oreille et le lieu / Haugesund (NO)

20 September – l'oeil, l'oreille et le lieu / RAS, Sandnes (NO)

22 September – l'oeil, l'oreille et le lieu / Kilden Performing Arts Centre, Kristiansand (NO)

28 September – l'oeil, l'oreille et le lieu / La Raffinerie, Brussels (BE)

30 September – l'oeil, l'oreille et le lieu / Charleroi Danses, Charleroi (BE)

6, 7 October – (RE)percussion ID / La Cite Miroir, Liege (BE)

9 October – Jukebox / Thailand Cultural Centre, Bangkok (TH)

13, 14, 15 October – (RE)percussion ID / Espace Magh, Brussels (BE)

9, 10 November – l'oeil, l'oreille et le lieu / Theatre de Liege, Liege (BE)

22 November – Le Chant des Ruines / Dieppe Scene Nationale, Dieppe (FR)

3 December– MU / Espace Culturel Andre Malraux, Le Kremlin-Bicetre (FR)

4 December – Jukebox / Florence (IT)

2021

22 August – Vertebre / Teatrul Gong, Sibiu (RO)

17 September – MU / Le Théâtre de Laval (FR)

15 October – MU / Les Quinconces - Scene National de Mans (FR)

16 October – sylvan / Danse Avec Les Foules Festival, Brussels (BE)

19 November – MU / L'Espace Culturel Le Reflet, Saint-Berthevin (FR)

1 December – French premiere of Jukebox / MPAA Saint Germain, Paris (FR)

9 December – MU / Pole Culturel, Conservatoire Des Coëvrons (FR)

11 December – Italian premiere of Jukebox / Teatro Cantiere Florida, Florence (IT)