© Anne Roeper                                                                                                  © Annelieke Rovers

Vision

Everything begins in the body.

Before thought, before structure, there is sensation. Breath, pulse, trembling, contact. My work grows from this physical ground.

I move, teach, and perform to explore what it means to exist in a body that is always changing. I studied philosophy and dance. I start from skin, weight, and space. Only afterwards do I let the mind make sense of what the body already knows.

I am drawn to art that is alive; that breathes with its audience. I seek encounters that invite physical empathy, that blur the line between performer and spectator, that create an environment where we can sense each other’s humanity through movement and presence.

Through Transcending Bodies, I create collective experiences rather than staged representations. Each work begins with the same question:
What does it mean to be human, here, now, in this body?
I believe the answer is never finished. Being human means being in motion; dynamic, porous, always under construction.

In performance and installation, I look for ways to touch that unfinishedness. The work can unfold in time or last for hours; it always invites the audience to be inside the experience, not just to observe it.

Method

Improvisation, repetition and meditation enhance sensitivity to the extent that even the slightest gesture takes on meaning. That's where we start.

The body works best when it is fully present and every fibre is connected. Presence connects us to each other, to our environment and to what transcends us.

The body becomes free of its everyday identity. 

My aim is for every performance to be a shared, temporary ecology of attention, where we breathe and move together. Drawing us deeper into existence, touching the edges of each their reality through contact.

Every experience is valued in an environment that is soft, intimate and attentive.