Artist in Residence

Simon(e) van Saarloos:

A big thank you to performance curator and public programmer Melih Gençboyaci for introducing me to Paula Chaves Bonilla’s work! Seeing their performance Omni Toxica made a lasting impression. The loud and messy frequencies of Chaves Bonilla’s choreography to address the North-American induced violence of drug trafficking, isn’t something that you’ll often see in Dutch theatre. Chaves Bonilla is a vibrant performer, choreographer and activist from Bogota, Colombia, living and working in The Netherlands. I’ll cite from one of our conversations: “Speaking about climate change, marica, it’s important to say: the end of the world already happened a thousand times for marginalized communities, habibi. It’s been more than five hundred years of ongoing fight against the complete erasure of our peoples. More than five hundred years since the white Europeans came and the fight against the extraction and colonization of our lands started. The end of the world already happened.”