Unhuman, nonhuman, inhuman, something of a strange or terrifying shape, a deviation from the normal, an imaginary creature, the hybridity that we cannot comprehend, a threatening otherness, making the Self perish.

FRANK as in open, honest, direct, and short for Frankenstein, is a project where the quest of distorting the familiar continues as Cherish Menzo dives into the monster’s figure, its various relations to
the human, and the horrors these relations entail.

More so than (re)producing a physical or visual portrayal of the monster, Cherish Menzo is interested in how monsters are a reification and metaphoric embodiment of the beliefs and narratives that terrify and horrify us. For FRANK, she deviates from the monster being something we must overcome, conquer, master, cast off, etc. Cherish researches the process of bringing the pre-monster stage or horror into a metaphoric embodiment and for that process to be the generator of image-making and the performative, sonic and text material that plays with the tension of ambivalence, uncanniness, enigma, and uncertainty.

In continuation of JEZEBEL and DARKMATTER, in FRANK, distortion will once again be one of the main ingredients to generate material. In addition, Cherish will look into the action of decay and how something gradually breaking down and getting less or worse can be another attempt to distort a form or information.

FRANK, THE MONSTROUS AND HORROR, THE 3RD PART OF A SPECULATIVE FABULATED TRILOGY (working title) will be the closing of a trilogy. A trilogy that does not consist of chronological storytelling or a series of events, but maybe more a trifold of spaces, universes, fictions, and conversations that regard Blackness, bringing the Black body to the center and attempting to explore the African Diaspora’s multi-intersections in recognizable, metaphorical, and abstract ways.

CREATION AND PERFORMANCE Malick Cissé, Mulunesh, Omagbitse Omagbemi SOUND DESIGN Maria Muehombo a.k.a M I M I VIDEO DESIGN Andrea Casetti SOUND AND VIDEO ENGINEERING Arthur De Vuyst SET DESIGN Morgana Machado Marques LIGHTING DESIGN Ryoya Fudetani DRAMATURGY Johanne Affricot, Renée Copraij MAKE-UP DESIGN Johanna Cool TEXT Khadija El Kharraz Alami, Cherish Menzo TECHNICIAN ON TOUR Ryoya Fudetani, Hadrien Jeangette, Arthur De Vuyst GRAPHIC DESIGN Nick Mattan

PRODUCTION GRIP & Theater Utrecht (Dorothy Blokland, Anne Breure, Owen Cicilia, Kelly de Haan, Hanne Doms, Seline Gosling, Anneleen Hermans, Tom Hemmer, Myrthe Ligtenberg, Rudi Meulemans, Lize Meynaerts, Klaartje Oerlemans, Jennifer Piasecki, Sylvie Svanberg, Ad van Mierlo, Vincent Wijlhuizen, Nele Verreyken)
IN COLLABORATION WITH Dance On Ensemble
INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION A propic – Line Rousseau, Marion Gauvent
COPRODUCTION Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Carreau du Temple – Etablissement culturel et sportif de la Ville de Paris, Productiehuis Theater Rotterdam, Julidans Amsterdam, PACT Zollverein funded by the Ministry for Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Festival Montpellier Danse 2025, Theater Utrecht, le Centre Chorégraphique National d’Orléans – Direction Maud Le Pladec, Tanzquartier Wien, DDD – Festival Dias da Dança, festival d’Automne à Paris, One Dance Festival, Perpodium
WITH THE SUPPORT OF Centre nationale de la danse à Pantin, BRONKS, GC Pianofabriek
WITH THE FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF the Flemish Government, Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government via Cronos Invest, BNG Bank Theaterprijs, Charlotte Köhler Prijs van het Cultuurfonds