“Frictions. That place where two so called opposites come together and create tension. It is a zero point. A void. Moving in this in-between-space and being moved by it, is my dance.”
Since Rebecca Lenaerts (1980, Belgium) studied theatre at the Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema and Sound (RITCS) in Brussels and the UDK Berlin, hybridity and transdisciplinary practices have been a constant in her artistic journey. Her work consists of interventions, installations, performances and the intersection between those genres, often outside the confines of the performing arts circuit. Strongly inspired by the movement practice and philosophy of Japanese Butoh Dance, she develops work in which she explores presence and vulnerability in a performative context. This shift took place thanks to a development grant from Kunstendecreet Flanders and laid the foundation for new work. Since 2023 she is supported by Platform 0090 for research, development and production of her work.
Still a bird (2021) is Lenaerts’ first solo performance in which she allows herself to be a dancer and explores her own Butoh Dance. Lenaerts has been training with several Butoh masters in Europe, USA and Japan. Since 2021 she initiates a weekly Butoh Lab at Tictac Art Centre.
Lenaerts has been initiated as firewoman in the tradition of the Lakota natives. As Warrior-of-the-Heart, she regularly facilitates sweat lodge ceremonies. The crossover between performance art and ceremony takes more and more ground in her artistic projects (cf. Birds, a ceremony, 2022).
“The focus in my recent work is on the (lost) connection between the body and nature, the place of the human in a larger unity, and the power of vulnerability and stillness.”
Parallel to her artistic trajectory, Lenaerts also developed a participatory art practice. Since 2008 she is connected to MUS-E Belgium, platform for inter-creation, and developed many artistic projects in various contexts and with different organisations and groups of people: Platform-K, Child Cancer Fund, ONBETAALBAAR VZW, Victoria Deluxe, KunstZ, Atelier Quartier/Seppe Baeyens, …. to name just a few. She currently initiates artistic interventions in a Brussels elderly home with the oldest generation and their caretakers (cf. Nikutai, the poetic body).
—— Brussels, 2024 ——