Charlotte Goesaert

2023 – now

 

Charlotte Goesaert - foto Renate Beense-DansBrabant

Charlotte Goesaert – picture Renate Beense / DansBrabant

Charlotte Goesaert (born Antwerp, 1987) is a dancer, choreographer and performer. She graduated from the Fontys dance school in 2009. She worked with SKaGeN, Tuning People, Romeo Castelucci, RO Theatre, among others. From 2016, Charlotte developed as a maker. Together with voice artist Joost Maaskant, she made ‘EPIC FAIL’ and ‘Loophole’, with Karolien Verlinden she made ‘ChitChat‘. With her work, Charlotte explores the boundaries of movement, music and image. Her work is meticulous and raw.

From 2023, Charlotte will be a core maker at DansBrabant.

“I want to step away from that typical dancer’s body. That body we admire so much and envy so much. I want to work with bodies I can relate to, and with which we feel connected.”

In 2019, Charlotte started a long-term research project called ‘CRIP‘: a search for the imperfect, unorthodox body. She collected material in the form of images and interviews – and spoke to artists, anthropologists and other scientists about their relationship to imperfection. With musician and video maker Jochem Baelus, she made short films featuring people with uncommon, startling and imperfect bodies. In parallel, Charlotte explored how to make sense of the documentary gaze and the medium of film on scene.

“We have a fear of the ugly. The freak shows are fortunately behind us, but still… thinking ‘we are the norm and they are abnormal’, we distance ourselves from the other and remain afraid.”

CRIP‘ culminated in the performance ‘whatchamacallit‘, a performance-exhibition show inspired by the 19th-century freak show, in which four actors deploy their bodies as objects of art, objects of viewing, objects of power and objects of lust. Old, skinny, trained and spastic, they move among the audience. At minimal distance, they share their stories, their rolls of fat, their flabby skin or protruding bones. Uncomfortable and reassuring at the same time.

Playing with the camera and documentary elements have often played an important role in Charlotte’s performances. Now she turns things around and starts making a documentary – with performative elements. Together with Jochem Baelus and dramaturge Sara Vanderieck, she will explore how movement and body can play a significant role on film. How do you ensure that an intimate story really arrives and also becomes physically inescapable?

With ‘The whole shebang‘, Charlotte wants to be able to give autobiographical material a place in her artistic oeuvre. The rücksichtslosheit with which Charlotte approaches a new project – calm and dogged – and the open mind with which she views her profession, suit DansBrabant. Without ado, without hesitation, she looks for a catchy way to tell a story that names the pain and shows the discomfort.