Two figures dressed in white, electronic music and a drifting voice sending Yung Hurn’s dreams of and appeals to togetherness – “Baby, you wanna chill and stuff  / Fly with me through Vienna and stuff ”– as well as the effect of pills into space in a loop. 

SOFTLAMP.autonomies is a dance co-created by Malik Nashad Sharpe (aka marikiscrycrycry) and Ellen Furey where their concurrent solo practices collide, creating new textures and embodiments built upon not-yet-here, not-yet-attainable- solidarities and autonomies in between their bodies.

Ellen Furey is a dancer and choreographer based in Montreal. In 2014 she completed the danceWEB programme in Vienna, Austria, organised by Impulstanz Festival. She regularly performs in the work of other choreographers and artists, such as Dana Michel. Her own work has already toured in Canada and New York.

Malik Nashad Sharpe is a choreographer, dancer and teacher of Vincentian-American heritage, now based in London. In Sharpe’s work choreography becomes a subversive instrument for delivering criticism of society’s anxiety and intolerance towards everything and everyone that deviates from the (neoliberal) norm. Their works are always explicitly pro-queer and pro-black and have previously been performed in the UK, USA and Canada.

“I really love Ellen and Malik. They asked me to work with them actually on this SOFTLAMP.autonamies project. So I went in on the project blindly but with deep and profound respect first of all for Ellen who I’ve known for many years, we’ve worked together before and then I got to know Malik through Ellen. They are two super generous, hilarious, hardworking, dare I say sexy humans. It’s a beautiful work. It’s powerful and illuminating from the inside like heart illuminating. So, the piece is full of love they’re full of love and I’m full of love for them and for the work. And it would be really wonderful for the public to go and discover this love bonanza between me and the piece and Ellen and Malik. I’m really happy that it’s coming here to Brussels and that Brussels will have an opportunity to discover these love bombs.” — Dana Michel

As part of ‘We Love You’, a multidisciplinary programme on love beyond the romantic and the self - sep oct nov dec 2019.

With the support from the Ministry of Culture and Communications of Quebec.

maliknashadsharpe.com/softlampautonomies-2019
instagram.com/marikiscrycrycry

Our friend the inimitable Canadian performer Dana Michel about her love bonanza for SOFTLAMP.autonomies.