MELANIE is a ± 20-minute solo on romanticism made during a 3-week residency at Pianofabriek.

When actress Mélanie Rullier approached choreographer Ugo Dehaes with the question to dance for him, immediately the idea to work around romanticism aroused. For years Ugo is fascinated by emotions and what goes on in a dancers head. By working with an actress the dance material could really emerge from her own feelings.

The question (an actress wanting to dance) reminds the fundaments of romanticism: "The name romanticism is borrowed from the medieval 'romances' - tales in which mortals pursue the dream of perfection." (wikipedia)

Ugo and Mélanie worked around the poem 'The birth of Venus' by R.M. Rilke. This text was translated to dance using several filters: sense, the sound of words, feelings, associations, physicality.

On stage we see a woman. Throughout the piece we dive deeper under her skin, we dive deeper in her head.

The contradictory movements bring her closer and closer to us, until she bursts from a cloven sea into the open.