Tatiana Jaenen, student in training and education sciences and UAntwerp employee
"People often tell me I’m a busy bee. I’m an account manager in the Law Faculty, where I take care of the practical side of events. I’m also working on my Master thesis and I have my own dance school, the Antwerp Burlesque Academy. Many of my students are alumni or current students of the University of Antwerp.
The adage about burlesque is unknown, unloved. This performance art combines dance, theatre and expression but also focuses on body positivity and sensuality. You learn to tap into and experience your own sensuality. At the Academy we also give twerking, chair dance and other workshops. In short, everything you need to feel good about yourself, as a woman or a man.
In that sense, the current period is definitely challenging. When we were asked to work from home and the scheduled dance lessons were cancelled, I felt quite worried. I’m always busy, I’m almost never home, how was I supposed to survive? Would I be bored? But soon I realised that this was a great way to reinvent myself and the ABA. Soon we will use Videoparty on Facebook for rehearsals with our show group. I developed my fast, introductory courses to burlesque so that they could be given online, one of my students started a blog on stretching and we launched a self-care challenge in collaboration with Heartfully Conscious. Because if there’s one thing we really need now, it’s good self-care.
You can use this time to reinvent yourself, break out of your comfort zone and learn something new. I advise everyone to keep on moving. I feel that exercise is an easy way to keep your fears at bay, to maintain a rational perspective on things, especially if you can do this in contact with others, like we are doing now, by dancing together online.”
You can see below how Tatiana continues to dance. Credits to Arne Keustermans and Yveline Garnier for coming up with the idea and developing it.