Life, Contorted | a Contoreography by Renske Endel and Andrew Valkenburg

Dutch acrobat and contortionist Renske Endel pushes her flexible and beautiful body to the limit in a dramatic and sensual choreography.

Renske Endel is probably Holland's finest all-round acrobat. At a young age she discovered her natural talent for doing gymnastics. She started training when she was 5 and eventually became European champion and vice World champion.

But it came at a price. Training was hard and she had to deal with obedience, pain and humiliation. She lost the joy of ‘performing tricks’ and in the end Renske decided to quit gymnastics and start a career of her own as a professional acrobat and contortionist. Nowadays she is a renowned performer and she travels the world to astonish her audience with her amazing body control, audacity and extreme flexibility.

With this video I want to make a tribute to her career and to that of all performing artists who work hard to turn their passion and natural talents into acts that entertain and surprise their audiences. It shows their paths starting with fun and discovery, followed by obedience, pain and suppression and finally the satisfaction of reaching one’s goal and re-discovering the joy of physical self-control.

Making the video was quite an adventure in itself. Once the concept was clear, Renske and I met in a small studio to make the recordings. Some of the movements and poses came from my imagination, others were improvised or invented on the spot by Renske. Working together with this beautiful, dedicated and very talented woman was an experience not to forget easily. I was amazed by the way she could bend, fold, twist, lift and balance her body, do extreme poses and hold them for a very long time, without any obvious effort or pain. And she would do the same routine over and over again, without any comment or complaint.

Editing the project was even a bigger challenge. Being a photographer, not very experienced with film making and editing, I am sure this project is full of beginners mistakes but I still think it is quite an unique project, using acrobatics and contortion to tell a story in a short video clip: a real contoreography.
Many thanks to Lexurus who did a great job creating the wonderful soundtrack!

Choreography, performance and make-up by Renske Endel
http://www.renskeendel.com
Concept, camera and edit by Andrew Valkenburg
http://www.andrewvalkenburg.nl
Music exclusively composed and performed by Lexurus
  / lexurus  
Additional soundFX by FreeSound.org
http://www.freesound.org
DedoLight gear provided by BBP Light
http://www.bbplight.nl
Black catsuit custom-made and provided by Lycrashop
http://www.lycrashop.nl

See more videoclips with wonderful Renske Endel on my new channel:
   / @1mmioneminutemovingimage