©David Krooshof
Biography
Astrid Boons (BE) is a choreographer and performer. In her work the body is approached as a space of discovery, as a territory that has fragile borders, which expand into other physical spaces and realities. Through long improvisations that require endurance, her creative processes search to empty the performers’ bodies from their meaning and acquired knowledge so that they can later reencounter the world from a new sensory space. Embodiment, memory, identity and coexistence are recurring subjects in her work, intermingling as poetical and expressive guides. Sound and light are approached as an expansion, extensions, and layers of the performers’ movements, therefore creating immersive environments, which are projected beyond the common physical borders of the performance space. As a reaction to the numbness and habituation of contemporary crises Astrid’s work is constantly searching to communicate deeply embodied sensations as reminders of our humanity and to confront reality in an active and awake state.
Astrid received the prestigious BNG Bank Dance Award 2017 and Piket Art Award 2017 for her duet Rhizoma (2016). Her work Vestige (2017) was shortlisted in the top 5 performances of 2017 in Amsterdam based newspaper Het Parool. Since 2017 Astrid is connected as a choreographer to Korzo Theatre in The Hague, The Netherlands.
As a dancer Astrid worked with Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch (2017-2018), Nederlands Dans Theater 1 (2017), GöteborgsOperans Danskompani(2013-2016), Nederlands Dans Theater 2 (2009-2013), Dansgroep Amsterdam(2009) and Dansgroep Krisztina De Châtel (2008).
Astrid graduated from The Royal Ballet School of Antwerp (BE). She holds a BA Dance from Codarts (NL) and a BA of Arts (Honours) in Humanities (Art History and Philosophy) from the Open University (UK).