Quinceañeras
Belgium, Germany
Quinceañeras is a dance performance project developed through a close worldbuilding process with Colombian choreographers, creators and dancers Luisa Fernanda Alfonso and Estefanía Álvarez Ramírez. Drawing from the Latin American quinceañera as both ritual and cultural fiction, the work unfolds as an immersive universe where ornament becomes language and symbolism becomes choreography.
Between exuberant dresses, devotional imagery, floral abundance and ceremonial gestures, reclaiming figures such as the princess, the virgin and the ecstatic saint emerge and dissolve, blurring the boundaries between celebration and mourning, innocence and desire, devotion and theatricality. The stage becomes an emotional landscape where collective memory, migration and transformation intertwine through a sensorial visual experience.
The collaborative creation of the project's visual world, translating these rituals, symbols and emotional landscapes into a spatial language, objects and atmosphere, in close dialogue with choreographic research and stage lighting.
Since its premiere, Quinceañeras has toured internationally, with presentations across Germany, Belgium and other international contexts.
Costume Design August Barron
Photography Margarita Maximova
Produced by Caravan Production
Burn
Glass
Gate
Creation, text & direction: Carly Rae Heathcote
Creation, scenography & costume design: Manuela Vilanova
Burn Glass Gate showcases large-scale theatrical images and narratives, where characters navigate the tensions between doubt and belief, fascination and horror. As a spectator, you embark on a humorous journey that repeatedly leads you astray.
Set in the now, we see three characters cross one another over and over again, their lives appear stagnant until the disappearance of one of the characters exposes the fragile grip they have on what they consider to be true. Focused on a thin line between truth and madness, a fictional world arises that both seduces and deceives the spectator.
︎ e-tcetera.be
“
What strikes one immediately in the performance is in fact the visual element which mirrors the barren jumble referred to throughout the text. Manuela Vilanova creates an almost palpable scenography out of beige whose diversity of texture seems to come alive with the performers’ interaction.”
Creation, text, direction: Carly Rae Heathcote
Creation, Scenography, Costume design: Manuela Vilanova Performance: Anna Franziska Jäger, Jana De Kockere & Estefanía Álvarez Ramírez
Sound design & Composition: Helen Olhausen
Technical production: Wim Bernaers
Platform technical design & construction: Roeland Dubbel & Vincent Vergote
Production manager: Zita de Vos
workspacebrussels (Brussels)
Coproduction: C-Takt (Pelt), DE SINGEL (Antwerp), workspacebrussels (Brussels)
Residencies: CAMPO (Ghent), workspacebrussels (Brussels)
With support from: the Flemish Community, KAAP, Theater aan Zee
Trailer & Photography by Studio Pramudiya, Britt Ryckebosch
2024
Aphex Continuums
Aphex Continuums is a site-specific installation created for hairstylist Nacho Sarube’s Art Deco studio in Montevideo, transforming the space into a terrain of fragmented reflection and perceptual shifts. At its core, Aphex Arcan disrupts the symmetry of the original fireplace with a sprawling shattered mirror intervention that splinters light, space, and self-image—evoking a state of ongoing transformation. In the styling area, three totemic sculptures crafted from raw concrete and mirrored surfaces rise to 260 cm, echoing brutalist forms while resonating with the studio’s geometric elegance. These 360° navigable pieces blur boundaries between interior and exterior, solidity and reflection, inviting an immersive encounter where architecture and body fold into one another.
︎ superfuture.com
︎ archdaily.cl
Photos Sebastian Aguilar, Adriana A. Navarro.
Architectural project Toro Arquitectos
Coven
Coven of care is born from the desire to create intimate objects that accompany rituals of connection, transformation and memory. Each piece is handmade, with intention. In the clay, time leaves its trace, what is felt becomes solid, fire keeps the secret of the invisible. They are created in transit: uprooting and situated learning leave their trace, mapping an affective geography that binds them together.
Inspired by an array of ancestral practices, by reverie, and the flow of the inner world, this project honors the body as an archive, matter as a language, and gesture a way of being. Bowls, vessels and other recipients: for sharing food, for ritual, for silence, for honoring presence, for what remains unnamed.
︎ covenofcare
2025
2026
2026
Romperse
ES
Creación de un universo inmersivo para Romperse, el álbum de Helen Olhausen, concebido para su presentación en vivo, lanzamiento en vinilo y grabación del álbum en directo.
Dirección artística, diseño de escenografía y puesta en escena, dirección de video. Visuales por la artista visual Sofía Córdoba. Diseño de iluminación y video por Ignacio [Apellido].
Presentado en formato de cuatro frentes en la Sala Zavala Muñiz del Teatro Solís (Montevideo, Uruguay), marzo de 2026.
EN
Creation of an immersive world for Romperse,, Helen Olhausen's album, developed for its live premiere, vinyl release, and live album recording.
Art direction, scenography and stage design, and video direction. Visuals by visual artist Sofía Córdoba. Lighting and video design by Ignacio [Surname].
Presented in a four-sided stage configuration at Sala Zavala Muñiz, Teatro Solís (Montevideo, Uruguay), March 2026.
2022
t
