Sleeping/Woke Beauty

The work Sleeping/Woke Beauty is a small installation, shown among other places during The Ballroom, a stage for living, loving and working, an exhibition/film set/stage for multifaceted gatherings, initiated by a group of makers who live, love and work in Amsterdam's Bijlmermeer.

Sleeping/Woke Beauty perhaps needs a little more explanation...

In this work, Monique Duurvoort reflects on the impact that growing up and working in professional ballet has had on her — first as a dancer, later as a choreographer, and only much later, for her personally as a human being. What is/has been the awareness, impact and consequences of conforming to and internalising the white/Eurocentric aesthetic norms and values of this dominant Western academic dance form, as a non-white person?

As a maker, Monique Duurvoort is particularly aware of how much the adopting, applying and internalising of the white/Eurocentric aesthetics of the academic dance form of ballet has shaped her, both personally and physically, but also in terms of her perception of when she considers something (in terms of movement, physical expression, stage imagery, etc.) 'beautiful' or 'not beautiful'. And, in that same vein, also her awareness, as a maker, of the extent to which this gets in her way during (for example) a creative process in which she works with themes relating to her Black background, versus the extent to which it helps her when it comes (for example) to communicating those same themes about her Black background to a white (professional) dance audience familiar with the (white/Eurocentric) aesthetic dance vocabulary that Monique uses.