Lisi Estaras
An iconic performer with les ballets C de la B under Alain Platel for more than twenty years, Lisi Estaras has developed her own choreographic projects alongside her performing career. In 2017, she founded the inclusive dance company MonkeyMind Company.
After studying to become a social worker and completing professional dance training, she chose to devote herself fully to dance. Born in Córdoba, Argentina, she began dancing in her hometown before leaving the country at 19 on a scholarship to study at the Rubin Academy of Music and Dance in Jerusalem. Soon after, she joined the Batsheva Dance Company in Tel Aviv. After five years in Israel, she moved to Europe and began her career with les ballets C de la B in 1997. She created and performed in Alain Platel’s Iets op Bach, Wolf, VSPRS, Pitié!, C(H)ŒURS and Tauberbach, as well as Tempus Fugit by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui.
During this time, under the aegis of les ballets C de la B, she also created Patchagonia, Bolero, The Gaza Monologues, primero-erscht and Dans Dans. In the years that followed, she continued to develop her own work independently. With the MonkeyMind Company, she created The Jewish Connection Project, Sonico, A Bigger Thing with Opera Ballet Flanders, and the solo #THISISBEAUTY.
In 2016, she created Monkey Mind at Platform K with three dancers with Down syndrome. That same year, she created The Speech for the dancer Irene Russolillo, and, with Benny Claessens, On Learning How to Walk for NTGent. In 2017, Monkey Mind toured in Belgium and internationally—an important milestone in her career.
In recent years, Estaras has focused on developing the “Monkey Mind” language, which approaches dance as a stream of thought, combining instinctive, fundamental movement with text around specific themes. The term “monkey mind” refers to the restless mental chatter that moves constantly from one thought and emotion to another. Rather than remaining anchored in the present moment, the “Monkey Mind” method follows one thought at a time.
Unmute Dance Company
Unmute Dance Theatre was developed in 2014 after a successful run of the Unmute Production and it was co-founded by Nadine Mckenzie, Mpotseng Shuping, Andile Vellem and Themba Mbuli. It is a company of artists with mixed abilities using Physical Theatre, Contemporary and Integrated Dance to create awareness on accessibility, integration, and inclusion of people with disability within the mainstream society.
Unmute was the first ensemble choreographic piece by Andile Vellem. It is based on his experience as a dancer who is deaf. This work was a way of Andile finding his voice as a choreographer, using sign language as the source of the movement vocabulary. He brought together artists from different backgrounds to investigate and explore what they would like to un-mute; feelings, perceptions, social norms and expectations; while endeavouring to deconstruct what society perceives as dance.
