Shantala Pèpe

Dancer, choreographer and filmmaker,  Shantala Pèpe develop her work both for stage and screen. After  directing two award-winning choreographic films, Emergences (2011) and Embrace (2014), Shantala Pèpe founded her company in Brussels in 2015 for the solo creation Despite Her (2016). Two other stage performances have been created since then, Carcan (2018) and Alice (2019), as well as a third award-winning choreographic film, The Magma Chamber. In 2018, the company was invited to the well established Belgium theatre-dance Company Mossoux-Bonté, as an artistic and administrative resident. 

Through a sensitive writing, combining the oneirism of choreographic  proposals with an immersive aesthetic, her creations explore the  inherent ambivalence of the human condition and identity issues, between  solitude and the necessity of the relational bond. In her solos, which  she performs, the choreographer questions from different angles the  place of women and their representations, exploring the timeless paradox  of power/vulnerability sticking to feminine identity. Rafales,  the company’s next project (2022), will for the first time invite 5  dancers to explore as a group the notions of mutual aid and cooperation  when facing danger. Her work is characterized by the attention paid to  the dialog between the movement, the luminous space, and the soundscape,  three subjects worked together throughout the creative processes. 

A gold medalist in rhythmic gymnastics in her childhood, then  trained at the Avignon Dance Conservatory, she joined as a dancer,  performer, assistant, or teacher, artists with eclectic universes, among  which the company Mossoux-Bonté, long time accomplice, the Watéfoc  collective Caliwaté & Focus), Karine Ponties, Isabella Soupart,  Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh, Erika Zueneli, Michèle Noiret, Wilkie Branson, Sofia  Fitas, Fernando Martin, Sheron Wray… She also trained in acting with  John Flanders, Beatriz Flores Silva, Marjorie Ballentine, Pico  Berkowitch, and appeared on screen for several directors and  choreographers. 

The projects produced by Shantala Pèpe Company are  supported, or have been supported, by the Federation Wallonia-Brussels –  dance commission, Les Brigittines – Playhouse for Movement,  Mossoux-Bonté Company, Cultural Center Jacques Franck, DAN.CIN.LAB, Le Marni, Wallonia Brussels International, Le LookIN’OUT, Wallonia Brussels Theatre Dance, SACD Belgium, Cultural Center Wolubilis, BAMP/AD LIB, Iles asbl/Artist project – Suitcase, WorkSpaceBrussels, L’Atelier Graphoui. 

More information: https://shantalapepe.net/