Dancer, choreographer and video artist, Shantala has been creating within the MANA company choreographic shows and films at the crossroads of dance, physical theatre and performance. She is particularly interested in the figures of ambivalence and the paradoxical notions of power and fragility, themes that run through her entire work.
After making the short films Émergences (2011) and Embrace (2014), which won international awards, Shantala begins a solo work in which she explores the question of the feminine and its representations. In 2016, she immerses us with Despite Her (2016) in the flamboyant and tormented world of the American blues and jazz divas. She was awarded in 2018 for the film The Magma Chamber which appropriates the black and white archetypes of the witch and the magician. That same year she choreographed the hypnotic form Carcan (2018), calling for the release of the body trapped in her own representations. In 2019, she engulfs us into the imaginary maze of a solitary and resilient Alice.
In 2022 she creates with 5 performers the show RAFALES, meta-narrative on universal and timeless phenomena of mutual aid and migration, for which she receives the SACD Choreography Award. The performance exUTERO is currently in preparation for 2025, as well as a 4th short film.
Shantala has also been working as a dancer, performer, assistant or teacher since 20 years for eclectic artists such as Mossoux-Bonté, Chaliwaté & Focus, Karine Ponties, Isabella Soupart, Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh, Erika Zueneli, Michèle Noiret, Wilkie Branson, Sofia Fitas, Fernando Martin, Sheron Wray among others.
She trained in acting with John Flanders, Beatriz Flores Silva, Marjorie Ballentine, Pico Berkowitch, and appears on screen for several directors and choreographers.
Shantala is currently in administrative coworking residence at the Théâtre Les Tanneurs, after being artist in residence with Compagnie Mossoux-Bonté for 4 years.
The projects produced by MANA are supported, or have been supported, by
the Federation Wallonia-Brussels - dance commission, Les Brigittines - Playhouse for Movement, Le Phare-National Choreographic Center of Le Havre Normandie / direction Fouad Boussouf, in the frame of Accueil-Studio, Mossoux-Bonté Company, Theatre Les Tanneurs, Jacques Franck Cultural Center, Engis Cultural Center, Le Marni, Zahrada/GARDEN, Le LookIN'OUT, SACD Belgium, Wallonia-Brussels Theatre Dance, DAN.CIN.LAB, Le bureau d'accueil des tournages de la Loire, The city of Saint-Etienne, Athanor asbl, Quoi d'Autres asbl, Wallonia Brussels International, Wolubilis Cultural Center, LE BAMP, AD LIB, Iles asbl/Artist Project – Suitcase, WorkSpaceBrussels, Atelier Graphoui.