Emmanuel Ndefo is a freelance dance artist, researcher, teacher and choreographer. I am interested in the critical display of the body within architectural and alternative spaces, not excluding museums, galleries, archives etc. Using the body and interactive performances as a tool to understand the relationship between art, audience and space. I believe that a well curated experience of the body moving within spaces can serve as a way of engineering thought, stirring up memories, and challenging narratives.
Residency project
"During the first part of my residence at Clarenza, I immersed myself in the community of La Bastide Clairence, and on several occasions I visited elderly residents of this community to talk with them about loss, grief, love and death. Our experience together was surreal and it wasn’t long before strangers became friends.
I want the second part of my performance/research to be movement based. I want to see what these residents are willing to share with me from their own humble movement resources. This time I want to engage them in a simple somatic and physical exploration of life and death. I want the conversation to not only come out of their minds and memory but from their arms, bodies and limbs. I want us to develop together a choreography of our lives based on the highs and lows, the twists and turns, the happy hours and the sad ones. I want to dance their stories, remembering their earliest years and imagining the moment of their death!"