For someone else, they may just be dancers, but for me, they represent fragments of life, of my life.
Artist: Monique Belier
Project: Where the spirit meets the bone
Book self-published
"Where the spirit meets the bone" is my first monograph and graduation project, consisting of 112 pages with black and white images and texts that serve as a guide and provide context for a language that may seem strange to a non-dancer. The book is bound with thread and mesh, allowing the spine to remain visible. Printed on eco-friendly paper, it comes with a slipcase made from agricultural waste, keeping it organic, much like the images within the book.
I was searching for a way to make the language of movement more universal. A book where you can flip through its pages and observe the movement, zoom in, capturing those moments that typically pass us by when we watch dance.
The moments I capture are not those of a completed or perfect movement. I find the moments between the movements, the journey, the breath, the anticipation, much more intriguing. It's the movement that hasn't been thought through, when the dancer is no longer aware of their surroundings. Fragments that tell a story or evoke an emotion. It's something for which we have no words, a language of movement in which we can recognize ourselves. It's no longer about dance, but about the unposed, fragmented movement that elicits or stirs emotions.
For someone else, they may just be dancers, but for me, they represent fragments of life, of my life. As a (former) dancer and choreographer with a complex inner world, it's often a quest to express what's happening inside. Dance translates my inner motion better than words can. It's not about dance, but about conveying feelings and emotions for which we have no words.
© Monique Belier