Mercedes Dassy will be in residence at the CCN¹ in June 2024. Nina Santes has been an associate artist at the CCN¹ since 2021.
Mercedes Dassy and Nina Santes don't know each other, but they are curious and thirsty for encounters. At the initiative of the CCN¹, they have invented a conversation in performance, intimate and delirious, weaving together the resonances between their artistic worlds, their practices, their experiences, their obsessions and their questioning. Straddling the line between reality and fiction, at the crossroads between a lecture in dance, a TED Talk that goes into a tailspin, and a surprise performance, they invite you to take part in this original and joyous encounter.
Mercedes Dassy is a performer and choreographer active in the fields of dance, theatre, performance, and video. In 2009, she entered the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (SEAD), and then joined a Summer Program in Tisch School of Art/Dance Department – New York University. Returning to Brussels in 2012, she performed with Voetvolk/Lisbeth Gruwez (AH/HA), Compagnie3637 (Eldorado, L’Enfant qui), Matej Kejzar (raive), Cie PHOS/PHOR (La compatibilité du caméléon), Lucile Charnier (L’Appel du Mutant), Valéry Carnoy (Projet Genêts), MUGWUMP, Justine Denos (APOIL), Notch company/Oriane Varak (As a Mother of Fact) and with Leslie Mannès/Thomas Thurine/Vincent Lemaître (FORCES). Since 2015, Mercedes Dassy has been creating her own work, starting with PAUSE, then i-clit (2018), followed by TWYXX in collaboration with the actor Tom Adjibi (2019), B4 summer (2020), Deepstaria bienvenue, a solo for the dancer Maeva Lassère commissioned by the Lyon Opera (2020), and Pamela Chapitre 6765, a performance for the 2020 edition of the Actoral festival in Marseille. In July 2018, Mercedes Dassy was awarded the Jo Dekmine prize for promising creations and artists by the Théâtre des Doms (Avignon). In 2022, she moved away from the solo to create RUUPTUUR, an opus for four dancers telling the story of collective power. Mercedes Dassy is currently starting a new cycle of research focusing on the voice and writing, and she will be, among other things, an associate artist at Charleroi danse as from the 2023-24 season.
Nina Santes makes her stage debut as a puppeteer. Since 2008 she has collaborated as a performer with many artists. She is the author of choreographic and musical pieces, including Désastre (2012), in collaboration with the composer Kasper Toeplitz, Transmorphonema, a duet with the choreographer Daniel Linehan, and Self made man (2015). In March 2016, she co-signed a duet in collaboration with Célia Gondol: A leaf. In 2018, she created Hymen Hymne, a choreographic and musical creation for 5 performers. The same year, she received the SACD New Choreographic Talent Prize. In 2020, she created République Zombie, a creation for three performers. She also created (Though a silent orchestra, they were full of) ELEGIES, a sound and choreographic performance for the voice of a child and a group of traditional singers, for the MIR Festival - Athens. In 2021, the Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon invites her to create a solo, LA VENERINA, for the dancer Elsa Monguillot. In 2022, she opens a new cycle of creations, Beauty Glow Tanning Studio. This cycle is made up of three episodes: Peeling Back (solo, creation 2023), Deep Deep Down Detox (installation-performance, 2023/2024), Wet Songs (collective piece 2025/2026).
