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“From a Time without a Notion”

Exploring the Temporal Dramaturgies of Cherish Menzo’s Jezebel and Darkmatter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2025

Abstract

In Jezebel (2019) and Darkmatter (2022), Dutch choreographer Cherish Menzo activates alternative temporal modes to perform the black body. Inspired by the chopped and screwed hip hop technique that manipulates tempo and pitch in existing songs, she disrupts conventional notions of time as a linear progression. Instead, she unfolds an “Epiphenomenal” temporal framework in which the present no longer appears as a continuation of the past or an anticipation of the future, but rather is a site of temporal experimentation that breaks with the past and cracks open the future.

Type
Article
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press for Tisch School of the Arts/NYU

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References

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