VLEK | 2020 

DISCOURSE 

 

i can use words that i can’t define

to people who are family in thought 

not blood

my kin reproached me for that paradox 

 

my sister 

has never been a mirror to me 

i tried mimesis for a while 

then i stopped 

and then i tried transcendence 

 

as for my mother, i don’t know 

i might need phenomenology 

to see the transparent givens,

untie through radical defamiliarization

the repeated patterns of her mother’s mother’s mother’s lives. 

 

and then there is my father 

freud finds him a great friend

nightly i dream about him 

and during day i wonder what our discourse 

Doke Pauwels (2019 - 2020)

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VLEK (meaning both 'stain' and 'flaw' in Dutch) is a short, poetic dance film about the search for a sense of belonging, with one’s kin, and in one’s own skin. A portrait of something elusive. The film shows the struggle between the body and the gaze, the dancer and the frame, laying bare the paradox of hiding the self - and wanting to find it. 

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Originally produced in colour in 2020, the film (available to view here) has been re-envisioned and recontextualized by myself for its 2025 iteration..

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The resulting movement study constitutes an interdisciplinary collaboration between dancer Doke Pauwels, art director Louise Coetzer, musician Gustavo Fasani, and myself. Each collaborator contributed domain-specific expertise, collectively shaping the work through an integration of choreographic inquiry, visual composition, and sonic experimentation.

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Special Jury Mention at WildDogs International Screendance Festival and kNOwBOX Dance Short Series.