“As a child, dance was my survival strategy”

BAKENEKO: Charlotte Goesaert's new show

December 12, 2025 - Dance magazine - Text Iris Peters, photos Clara Hermans

With BAKENEKO, Belgian choreographer and dancer Charlotte Goesaert (1987) seizes on her own life to make a fraught subject collectively discussable. With projected images that evoke memories, audio clips, a per sonal letter and a re-enactment of her first stage dance as a six-year-old.

text Iris Peters photos Clara Hermans

Can you tell if a child is happy?

Or that something is in play?

What does the body say?

What does jerky breath say?

Hands fidgeting?

Spaghetti legs?

‘Not all memories are linguistic,’ says someone on tape. ‘Some memories you store in your body.’ How exactly do you make that palpable and discussable to a group of people who are (potentially) further removed from this?

Charlotte Goesaert's previous work is raw, expressive, humorous and, above all, human. She deploys themes that people and (seemingly) would rather look away from: bodies that no longer work properly, intimacy, objectification of the body, and also failure.

 It seems as if all this past work has formed a kind of preliminary research for BAKENEKO, which premiered 30 October. Her latest performance, which is more reflective and poetic, deals with the invisible limitation of the body and addresses our collective responsibility around child sexual abuse and neglect.

‘Bakeneko’ is a Japanese term for a fictional cat and metaphor for the consequences of mistreating creatures smaller and weaker than yourself. It is also the title of your new performance, which you call a physical documentary. You use video images projected on canvas, pedestals or blinds, so they are never quite sharp, though sometimes they make the sharpness palpable. As if they are fragmented memories that come to the surface and then hide in the background again. Why did you want to work with video images in this way?

‘This video footage comes from the conversations I had with children and professionals during the preliminary research of this show. Because sexual abuse often takes place inside the home, we went outside. In the footage, you see fragments of that: a piece of nature, an average street with cars, a dog looking at you happily.

Documentary to me is the unveiling of what we don't want to touch yet, which is why I love it so much.

I actually always work on the basis of interviews. For the research of my first performance on the subject of failure (EPIC FAIL, 2016 - ed.), I went out on the streets with a handycam and asked people and: what are you afraid of? For my performance I-object (2021), I interviewed 12 young people and sexologists about sex and intimacy. And for watcha-macallit (2023), I interviewed professional and non-professional performers about their bodies. Snippets from these conversations the visitor heard back from the lockers, which the performer had on their bodies, making the saying lol. It is a craft I developed that suits me well.

I am a dancer and dance maker, but dance can sometimes feel aloof. People look in admiration at the virtuoso dance body and put it on a pedestal

I think the input of documentary is a way of connecting the people striking on stage with those watching this. The text fragments and images give the audience space to bring their own experiences into the subject.

Actually, I always combine interviews with physical actions. iNet only on stage, but also during the interviews themselves. For BAKENEKO, I had a child play drums while I interviewed her or I walked through the forest with a criminal judge who is also a hunter. They are then not only in their heads, but also in their bodies. That what they carry in their bodies, what is going on under the skin, works its way into the interview and thus ultimately into the pre-count.’

Gradually, it becomes clear that your own story was the trigger for this performance. This really gets through with the voicemail messages about making an appointment with one Chris. Invariably ending with ‘warm greetings, Charlotte’. How can dance express memories stored in the body, traumas? Doesn't your body just jam?

A trauma body responds either with paralysis or with a hyperarousal: a state of heightened tension in which your senses are hyperactive. You constantly experience that split from the past that et body is still reacting to and the confusion of it.

I threw out my first performances in a kind of hyperarousal. My body is also the body of a survivor. But this time I wanted to reflect more and just BE on stage. I now move between different worlds of memory. I dance, walk, talk, ask questions to the audience, each time in different energies, as if I were different people. I drew inspiration for this from Miranda July's films and the choreographic work of Pina Bausch and Martha Graham. The confusion that arises in the audience refers to how confusing the body of a survivor is.

When you go through early overwhelming experiences, your brain kind of short-circuits. This creates strange, illogical connections, which can be long-lasting and repetitive. In the moment itself, you step outside your body, to process it later. I also applied this principle in my performance. After the personal letter from which I read out what happened to me, I walk up to the audience and ask if they think I am more beautiful with blonde or red hair. If someone is too stuck in the trauma, the psychologist asks them to list all the yellow dots in the room. Something like that calms your system and brings you back to the here and now, after which processing can only begin.’

Sometimes we also see you hiding, hopping and dancing like a child. These are the most vulnerable moments...

‘I wanted to make the performance with The Child. The child that I was. My own self. But also with other children: you see I project a child on my bare belly. You always carry yourself as a child with you. At the end, I even dance the dance I performed as a six-year-old, when I was on a stage for the first time. As a child, dance was my survival strategy.’

At one point, spectators wear projection screens on stage at your request. They hold up shredded memories of eternally scrubbing hands. What choices do you make when you want to use your personal story to collectively address a socially disruptive issue?

“Will you help me?’, I asked the people carrying the screen. And that was physically quite hard to do, but they did this for me. Through little interactions like this, I engage them in the story. I want people to see and beyond their surprise. That they don't feel the thrill of the story for a moment and then go on with their lives. But that they learn to read body language, act on their intuition and constantly question what they see. Three in 10 children experience sexually transgressive behaviour, according to the Netherlands Youth Institute. It is woven into our lives. We grow up with children who experience or have experienced it. We are all in the middle of it. So I engage the audience by asking everyday questions: Did you used to have a pet name? Or: How were you comforted. Maybe this way people will find the courage and words to start a conversation. And they won't passively look the other way.