Maria Luiza Grymonprez

What inspires your work?

“My friends, family, chosen family, community, Queers, The Ballroom scene, Fem Queens, Femmergy, Brazil, musea and expositions, Hip Hop Culture, Social dance, watch performances, art, yoga, jams, party’s, drag, safe spaces, music, nature, traveling, club culture… Doing, experiencing, looking and having all these things helps me in my creative process.”

What is your creative process?

“It is important to try things I never did before and don’t see myself doing. That’s how I got in to the Ballroom scene and Im forever grateful for that.”

“I follow a lot of queer, artist and dance accounts on instagram. Im addicted to the app (so not ok) but when it comes to inspiration it helps me a lot.”

“Im a freestyler and I mostly train together with more people. We share our own practice/movements and thats how we inspire each other. The first part of a training is mostly training some moves and try to make new ones, combinations,... In the second part we dance a solo freestyle on a whole song. Here I just try to let go, feel the music and research the different layers the song is made of to make my freestyle interesting.”

“At this moment I’m focusing mostly on freestyling with the different styles I practice. I’ts also important to get more out of my comfort zone. One of the reasons freestyler is because I’m very bad at remembering steps (hahah lol), so I struggle a lot with learning a choreography. This is why I take choreography classes from time to time, to train my weak spots and mostly to get inspired by other dance teachers. My goal is not to execute the dance perfectly but I want to take the knowledge in to my own practice and embody it in my own way.”

“For me a creative process is also not trying to compete and compare with others (this is so hard to not do lol). Instead I only try to compare with myself and with the old me. Thats how we grow.”

What about photography, dance and performance as mediums speak to you? How did you get your start in it? Do you feel like one discipline influences the other?

“In 2019 I was graduated from KASK Photography, with my project “Bum Bum Animal Party”. In this series I worked around Latin American dance culture in Belgium, with my roots being half Brazilian / half Belgian, I focused on the sensual attraction between bodies on Latin and Caribbean parties. Vice noticed me and wrote an article about my work, this project marks the starting point of my dance career. My years at the art school were very difficult for me. I was never happy and confident about myself and my work. This project was the first time I liked what I made, because it was about my first love; dance.”

“After I graduated I started to combine my two passions dance and visual arts more and more. Because I was more focused on my dancing at that time, I aded more visuals from specific sensual body parts (hair, hips, torso) moving on very loud Latin, vogue and Dancehall music. Photography and film are such strong mediums and if you combine this with music it quickly grabs the attention of the viewer, it intrigues. That is what I love about it. I love to provoke, to make people question themselves and certain behaviours/patterns and to make them dance.”

How do you create safe spaces through dance?

“Improvisation and feeling safe are foundational. Throughout my dancing practice, I am focused around intersectional feminism and healing practices for the eroticized and “othered” bodies. By creating “Femmergy” workshops I invite participants to reclaim their individual power by finding ways to move sensually throughout power structures.”

“In this workshop I trie to create a queer and feminist safe-space to express the femmergy in each of us. Beyond the body paradigm and body shame, I trie to de-center the binary and want to explore Femmergy in a fun and inclusive dance workshop for all bodies to feel sexy, confident and cute.”

In this workshop we want to create a safe space. This means that every form of discrimination or unrespectful behavior is not tolerated. We take consent very serious and want everybody to feel safe and accepted for who they are.”

Are there any recurring themes/issues you like to address within your work?

“In my dance practice I celebrate my queer femme existence through identity, sensuality and sexuality. Intersectional feminism is a very important topic to me. In my performance art, that is still a research for me, I focus on healing practices for the eroticized, exoticiezed and queer bodies. For now I created my Femmergy workshops where I trie to de-center the binary and want to explore the dimensions of Fem energy that is in each one of us. This beyond the Body paradigm and body shame.”

Did you have any queer role models? If so, who?

“Prepare yourself. I'm someone who can not chose and make short resumes hahah.”

“In my photography era:
I did not know I was queer when I studied photography. It was only in my last master year, in 2019, that I discovered my queerness. Most of the artists we learned about where sadly white man but of course I looked up to feminist and queer artist without knowing I was one myself. Some others I looked up to chose queerness as their subject or tried to step away from binary structures. Artists also inspired me when their art was real and honest but also when it was magical and surreal; Brassaï (one of the first pictures of a drag in a night club in Paris), Nan Goldin, Diane Arbus, Cindy Sherman, Francesca Woodman, Guerrilla Girls, Rineke Dijkstra, Viviane Sassen, Vincent Rosenblatt (documents the Baile Funk scene in Rio), Elinor Carucci, Ren Han, Helmut Newton, …”

“Queer and feminist Icons that inspire me now:
I always was a big Fan of Frida Khalo (I know cliché haha) but when I was younger I did not know she was queer. Now that I know I’m even a bigger fan. I just love her feminist style, the colours of her paintings and how she told her life through art. Social media inspirations: Them, Florance Given, Alok Vaid, Matt Bernstein, We The Urban, Nowness, Freeda, …”

“Others:
the movie ‘Moonlight’ by Barry Jenkins, Dustin Thierry (documents the Ballroom scene), …”

“Performance artists and dancers who inspire me:
Marina Abramović, Yves Klein, Danielle Polanco, Popping Danys, Daniela Barbieri, Manuka, Mariana Benenge…. Voguers: Leyomi Mcdnonald, Matyouz, Typhoon Angels, Lynn Ninja, Archie Burnett, Suzume 007, Willy Ninja, Nala Revlon, Honey Balenciaga, Angèl Balenciaga, Juliete Cosmos, …. and too many more inspirational vogue performers to sum up here.”

“My friends inspire me the most with their art:
Lou Vanhecke, Yanni Loenders, Martyrio, Valenciaga, Krasna, LadyBoy Jon, Angel 007, Marlla Araujo, Destiny Valentino(Jhaya), Ellen Verbeek, Désirée Cerocién, Jino Martinez, Nina Muñoz, Amin Srasra,… I just have too many talented friends who are dancers, drag performers, writers, graphic designers, … I want to some them all up but that would be a long interview, and it already is haha :(“

”Brazil inspires me and my mother who was always a role model for me as she was also a danser. She is an amazing samba dancer. When she danses, the first thing that moves is her hips. She gave me the ‘Bunda power’ , power of the ass. My father gave me his good taste in music. Because of this I love to experiment with movement on different music genres. It leads to new inspirations and visions. My brother inspires me as he is a solo artist in the music industry who works hard for what he wants and has his own authentic style and personality.”

Are there upcoming events/appearances that you would like to bring attention to?

I will be part of a beautiful queer project and exposition from Guislain, Ghent called MVX, I gave photo workshops to queer youth and this will be shown the 25/06. a demo workshop that I Will give at Benewerken in Bruges the 12/08 at 19:45