SUSANNE BENTLEY

BIO

Susanne Bentley (NZ/BE) is a contemporary dancer, improvisor, teacher and choreographer, working with others and on her own projects in New Zealand and Europe since 1996.
In 2000 she was a DanceWEB scholar at Impulstanz (Vienna). Since then she has performed with companies such as Superamas, Cie. Fabienne Berger, Les Ballets C de la B, Maria Clara Villa Lobos, Poni, Bal Moderne…
From 2002-9 she made music and performances with electronic musician Peter Van Hoesen as Bent Object. She is also a founding member of SoloConversations Dance Collective, performing improvised pieces since 2007.
She teaches contemporary dance and performance improvisation for companies, universities and studios such as Ultima Vez, Charleroi Danses, Danscentrum Jette (Brussels), Tanzquartier (Vienna), Tanzfabrik (Berlin), University of Waikato, Otago University (NZ). She also teaches pole technique, contemporary pole/floor work & pole show girl classes for Sarahcademy in Brussels.
She is a ICF accredited life coach, and artistic coach. Amongst her artistic clients is Sarah Cavenaile (4x Belgian pole champion, World Cup Pole Sport finalist 2013, European Pole Show Art champion 2014) and Maria Clara Villa Lobos.

FRAME OF RESEARCH

Body Rhymes is an exploration into the world of spoken word poetry and its possible combinations with the body. How can spoken word be looped with unspoken word & movement? How does the body rhyme?
This exploration builds on my ongoing research with SoloConversations Dance Collective  and workshops Embodying Text into how language and the body can feed on each other in performance improvisation.
Body Rhymes is an either partly or fully improvised solo performance that is adapted to the site or context it is performed in- a ‘set’ of spoken word poems in text and movement.