About
°1978, born near Venice, based in Brussels.
Sara Manente works as a choreographer, dancer, researcher and mentor. Her work focuses on aesthetics and ethics at the intersection between live arts and live cultures, namely fermentation technology, chimerization and (auto)immunity.
Sara studied ballet since her childhood and, later on, contemporary dance in Italy and abroad. In 2003, she graduated in Communication Sciences at the University of Bologna with an interdisciplinary thesis of Semiotics and History of Dance. After a year as independent researcher at the University of Antwerp, she focused on her own artistic work.
In 2008, she attended a.pass (formerly APT) for a post master degree in performing arts, and 10 years later she was part of the a.pass Research Center/Cycle 1. Interested in the idea of “performative publishing” and in the dynamic relation between performer, work and spectator, her projects are developed throughout hybrid research and unfold in different formats: choreographic pieces, films, texts, interviews, curated events, workshops, telepathic experiences, and more.
Sara’s two major dance pieces are Lawaai means Hawaai (2009) and Faire un four (2011), followed by a longer research project focused on “ekphrasis” and the critical relationship between dance and language: Spectacles (2016-18, interviews, books and a 3D film in collaboration with Christophe Albertijn). From 2012 to 2019, she has been working with Marcos Simoes. Together they question notions of collaboration and the relation with the audience by making performances, videos and workshops inspired by paranormal practices. This place, x: I liked B better/ y: I am 29 too, Tele Visions and Lava.
Since 2018, Sara started focusing on the intersection between live arts and live cultures. She received a research grant from the Flemish Authorities for “Wicked technology/Wild fermentation”: a research on art practices, eco-feminist theories and fermentation, looking for techniques that transform thought, perception and doing (of togetherness). In 2020, she edited ROT/Issue Zero, a magazine that unfolds from the research and became the catalogue for a curatorial event called ROT GARDEN. In 2021/22, she organized, in collaboration with Far Nyon, “Technologie de champignons”, an open school about mycelium. After experimenting with different performative gestures, under the title MOLDING, and a 6 months studio residency at WIELS, she created MOLD in 2022, a dance piece for three dancers and mycelium sculptures at BUDA, Far, Serralves and Kaaitheater.
“In my work there is often the concern of expanding the moment before naming or categorizing. A sort of suspension in a state of affects, paradoxes and possibilities. In this suspension something happens to the body.”
With an interest in pedagogy in the arts, she worked as mentor and curator at a.pass. She shared her practice and tools at KASK, ISAC, ZUYD, DOCH and EXERCE.
Sara Manente has been working with and performing for Juan Dominguez, Kate McIntosh, Aitana Cordero Vico, Marcos Simoes, Jaime Llopis, Nada Gambier, Gaëtan Bulourde, Andrea Maurer, Begüm Erciyas and Beatrice Balcou.
Currently she is editing new ROT GARDENs and distributing MOLD in different contexts.
