Cherish Menzo (1988, Netherlands) is a choreographer and dancer. She lives and works in Brussels and Amsterdam. In her work, Cherish Menzo explores how the body can transform on stage and how ideas, images, and identities are physically embodied. Through distortion, decay, and dissonance, she seeks to free bodies from ingrained perceptions and their everyday physical reality.

Cherish emphasizes the complexity and contradictions of images that may seem familiar at first glance. By deliberately disrupting the “ordinary” vocabulary - that of the speaking, readable body - she searches for the uncomfortable, the enigmatic, and the monstrous. From this disruption, speculative forms and inventions emerge on stage, balancing between recognition and estrangement.

Cherish graduated in 2013 from the Amsterdam University of the Arts / Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, majoring in Urban Contemporary Dance. After her studies, she worked as a dancer with international choreographers such as Eszter Salamon, Akram Khan, Leo Lerus, Hanzel Nezza, Benjamin Kahn, Olivier Dubois, Lisbeth Gruwez, Jan Martens, and Nicole Beutler.

She began creating her own work in 2016. Her performances explore themes such as perception, identity, the Black body, and transformation. She employs techniques like distortion, decay, and dissonance to challenge audiences to engage with the body in ways that transcend everyday logic.

Productions

EFES (2016) – in collaboration with Nicole Geertruida
LIVE (2018) – with musician Müşfik Can Müftüoğlu
JEZEBEL (2019) – inspired by hip-hop videos and Video Vixen stereotypes
~~DARK~~MATTER (2022) – about perception, darkness, and the Black body
KILLED AND EXTENDED DARLINGS: SUBTLE WHINE (2023) – a research project on performative transformation
FRANK (premiere 2025) – explores monstrosity and distortion within a mythical context

Awards and recognition

Amsterdam FRINGE Award and FRINGE International Bursary Award (2019) for JEZEBEL.
Charlotte Köhler Prize (2022) from the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds for her innovative contribution to dance and performance.
BNG Bank Theater Prize (2023) for ~~DARK~~MATTER, an important recognition for emerging theatre talent.
~~DARK~~MATTER was selected for both the Dutch and Belgian Theatre Festivals and received multiple acknowledgments in dance and performance.

Cherish’s work often balances the familiar and the speculative, inviting audiences to reconsider established forms of body and identity. She is regarded as an influential maker in contemporary dance and performance, centering the Black body and challenging conventional perceptions. She is also one of the artistic leaders of GRIP, a platform for dance creation and production.

Artistic team

Casper Vandeputte

Carolina Bianchi

Jaha Koo

Naomi Velissariou

Cherish Menzo

Floor Houwink ten Cate

Anne Breure

Vincent Wijlhuizen