Sabine Molenaar
Sabine Molenaar (1985, Netherlands) studied Modern Theatre Dance at the Amsterdam School of the Arts. She received her degree in 2007. In 2006, she worked with Ann van den Broek for the performance E19 the way to San José. From 2006 to 2008, she worked with the Dutch dance company Instant Collective, of which she was co-founder. In 2008, she came to Brussels where she worked for two years with the dance company Peeping Tom and toured internationally with their performance 32 rue Vandenbranden.
In 2013, That's it, Sabine's first solo and the first production of her company Sandman premiered at Festival Cement. Based on the same material, she also made the short film That's it. That's it won first prize at the ACT Festival in Bilbao and the TAZ/ELLE prize for Strongest Female Talent at TAZ 2013 in Ostend. In March 2015, her second solo performance premiered under the title Touch Me, also at Festival Cement. In both performances, Sabine speaks an extremely physical and also very expressive language. Sabine starts from a certain 'state of mind' that she tries to translate to the floor. Essential to her work is the element of 'transformation': transformations of images, but also transformations of the state of mind, of physical sensations and energy... In her first solo, she took us on a journey full of characters from the cradle to the grave; for her second solo, the starting point is the concept of 'intimacy' and the many forms it can take.
Sabine: "Indeed, in my work I always start from a state of mind that I try to translate physically and take to the extreme. 'That's it' has been described as a "choreography between reality, dream and nightmare". You get the feeling that I am lingering on the thin line between our and another reality, or between reality and dream. It is as if I am not really present, partly because of a kind of 'glassy' look I maintain throughout the performance. I also evoke a certain state of mind with 'Touch Me'. Another 'abstract' performance in which I show different layers of reality and nothing is what it seems. I aim for a kind of abstract theatricality that evokes all kinds of associations. I aim to represent a state of mind, rather than being on stage as the person Sabine Molenaar or as a particular character. There is no linear narrative to be discovered, there is no room for logic. Everything starts from an intuitive way of associating, where time and space are also distorted."
The choice to work with Sabine Molenaar is prompted by content considerations and the realism with which she shapes her working practice. Her associative imagination immediately strikes a chord with the viewer, who effortlessly surrenders to her bizarre series of movements and transformations. It is her physical and emotional concentration that takes you into a maelstrom of haunting visual scenes. With her performances, Sabine stretches the boundaries of dance and skims against the circus without any intention.
Sabine Molenaar works from her own foundation Sandman and was supported by PLAN Talent Development Brabant from 2014-2017. In PLAN, DansBrabant, Het Zuidelijk Toneel, Festival Cement, Theaterfestival Boulevard, Circo Circolo, De NWE Vorst, Podium Bloos, Parktheater Eindhoven and United Cowboys work together. From 2014-2022, Sabine will work in a multi-year partnership with DansBrabant and Belgian Kosmonaut Production.
