Marlene Monteiro Freitas

Marlene Monteiro Freitas is a dancer and choreographer. Born in Cape Verde, she studied dance in Brussels and Lisbon, working with Emmanuelle Huynh, Loïc Touzé, Tânia Carvalho and Boris Charmatz, among others. She set up her own company in Cape Verde, Compass, before moving to Lisbon to work for P.OR.K, of which she is co-founder, and for O Espaço do Tempo, in the municipality of Montemor-o-Novo. Her work is characterized by its accessibility, heterogeneity and strength, with works such as Primeira Impressão (2005), A Improbabilidade da Certeza and Larvar (2006), Uns e Outros (2008), A Seriedade do Animal (2009), the solo Guintche (2010), (M)imosa (2011, in collaboration with Trajal Harell, François Chaignaud and Cecilia Bengolea), Paraíso, colecção privada (2012), and De marfim e carne – as estátuas também sofrem (2014), Jaguar (in collaboration with Andreas Merk), Bacantes – Prelúdio para uma Purga (2017). In 2017, she received honors from the Cape Verdean government for her work in the cultural field, and, in the same year, for Jaguar, the prize for best choreography at the Sociedade Portuguesa de Autores awards. In 2018, she created Canine Jaunâtre 3 for the Batsheva Dance Company and received the Silver Lion at the Venice Dance Biennale.

Since 2020, she has been co-programmer of the (un)commonground project on the territorial and artistic inscription of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; in the same year, she received the Critica d’Arts Escéniques de Barcelone award for best international show for Bacantes. In August 2020, she creates MAL – Embriaguez Divina at Hamburg’s Kampnagel Theater, and in July 2021, she presents Pierrot Lunaire with Ingo Metzmacher at the Vienna Festival. In 2022, she creates the solo Idiota, commissioned by the CNAD in Mindelo, Cape Verde. It is a piece of artistic dialogue with Alex Silva (1979-2019). She also created ÔSS for the Dançando com a Diferença company. She was recently awarded the CHANEL Next Prize by a jury including David Adjaye, Tilda Swinton and Cao Fei. In 2021, she will receive the Events pour l’art Prize.

Source: Maison de la danse