Biography
I am Charlotte Goesaert, a Belgian choreographer, dancer and performer.
After graduating from the Fontys Dance Academy in Tilburg in 2009, I continued to live in the Netherlands but worked internationally. As a dancer and performer, I was involved in creations such as Skagen (Almschi, 2011), Tuning people (Synchroon, 2019), Romeo Castellucci (Giudizio, Possibilità, Essere 2014) and Post uit Hessdalen (Echo, 2019). I worked in Rotterdam with the city company Ro Theater, in Lisbon with choreographer Olga Roriz, in Berlin with Alize Zandwijk and in Cologne with dance theater company Bodytalk/Johann Kresnik.
From 2016 onwards, I created my first works EPIC FAIL (2016) and Loophole (2018) together with actor and voice artist Joost Maaskant. In 2019 I created the performance ChitChat together with creator Karolien Verlinden (from Tuning People). These works toured both Belgian and Dutch theaters and played at festivals such as Operadagen Rotterdam (Rotterdam), Grensverkeer (Brakke Grond, Amsterdam), Tweetakt festival (Utrecht), and Theater Aan Zee (Oostende).
“What unites these performances is the preference for grandiose breaking or failure and the search for man in his imperfection. Without embellishment, raw portraits of people who playfully seek to connect with the audience in their vulnerability and discomfort.”
In 2019-2020 I started working alone on a large-scale CRIP research project. With the aim of immersing myself even more in humanity, I investigated dance as a documentary and the limitations of the body. This research is the foundation for my future work. For example, in 2021 I made I-object in collaboration with Körperverstand Tanztheater Wien. This performance is a physical concert for young people, in which three players with one TV screen embark on a quest to discover their sexuality. In 2022-2023 I will create the performance whatchamacallit, a performance exhibition by a diverse cast of five players.
“whatchamacallit reveals the seeds of my artistic vision for the future: how I inject everyday life into my work; how I formally experiment for each concept (such as an exhibition here); how I connect dance and video; how I work socially interactively with professionals, non-professionals and a diverse cast; how I immerse myself in topics that we socially prefer to avoid.”
Photo: Bart Grietens
In residentie The Whole Shebang
09.12.2024 – 20.12.2024
The Whole Shebang is a documentary performance that delves deeply into trauma and how it nestles in the body. Charlotte Goesaert combines image, sound and live performance, creating a world that feels both intimate and terrifyingly lonely. The museum-like setting and the minimal distance between the performer and the audience make it inevitable that the gruesome will also be right in front of you.
In residentie BAKENEKO
03.01.2026 – 03.01.2026
A documentary physical performance about trauma, the reality that lives beneath the skin, and the blind spots of our society.
In BAKENEKO, performer and creator Charlotte Goesaert herself takes the stage in a physical solo about how trauma becomes embedded in the body—invisible to the outside world, yet decisive from within. The performance exposes the latent traces of child abuse and neglect, while simultaneously questioning the mechanisms that perpetuate them.
Based on conversations with people who encounter this theme through their social roles, Goesaert interweaves their voices, images, and sounds with the expressive presence of her own body. This creates a compelling scenic experience in which documentary elements and physical imagination challenge each other.
BAKENEKO is not a quest for ready-made answers, but an invitation to collective reflection. Why is it that we so often notice signals too late? Why don’t we intervene sooner? What needs to change to better protect children? How do we deal with a reality we would rather forget? Where lies the line between compassion and discomfort? Goesaert immerses the audience in an experience that grates, touches, and continues to resonate. In a world where trauma often remains subdued, this performance invites us to sharpen our perspective—as citizens, professionals, parents, and fellow human beings.
After whatchamacallit, Charlotte Goesaert deepens her unique formal language, in which image, body, and sound converge in a physical, vulnerable, and confrontational performance that makes visible what usually remains unseen.
