Castélie Yalombo Lilonge

Switching from communication studies to dance, one might almost wonder what the connection is. But why? Yet we remain in the realm of language, and Castélie's dance is so expressive that her steps have words. Words that we guess like in hangman, about being a woman, about a silent lineage that we trace back like a stream, there, a bit of Spain and Congo, but here, in Brussels. It's not so obvious to completely change direction, to bet on an uncertain future, to gamble on the art of performance. But the choice is made: it will be dance school.

This may even be the first foundational artistic act: to assert that it is a profession to speak, to show, to question, to propose, to stage all our appearances and to drop our masks by wearing them. This is the starting point of her approach.

So she throws herself in, first ULB then a master's at the Higher Institute of Arts and Choreographies ArBA EsA.

Creating yes (Close your eyes in 2018 which will be taken up later under the name of shadow cleaners: water and presented at the KVS during the Congolisation festival in January 2020; This is my body delivered for you 2019), but also participating: she collaborates with different artists such as: Clément Thirion (2016), Fabian Barba (2017), Ingrid Midgard Fiksal (2019), Faustin Linyekula (2019) and Louise Vanneste (2021).

Castélie, The Dismayed of the Living Waters... as if myths survive through our names and the nymphs who escape the gods, inspiring those who drink from the fountains, forever transmit their poetry as a legacy.

Biography by Raïssa Alingabo Yowali Mbilo