Christine Matthée - Dancing to Her Own Tune, in a Style of Her Own Making - La Passerelle Dance Studio
There are many ways to find your voice. For Christine Matthée, it was through dance.
As a child, Christine was extremely shy. She started speaking very late and struggled with severe dyslexia and other learning difficulties that made communication and school particularly challenging. She found it difficult to fit into the world around her, but dance was the one place where she felt at home. What began as a love for music and movement gradually became much more than a passion. It gave Christine a way to communicate, to understand herself and, eventually, to find her place in the world. Today, she runs La Passerelle Dance Studio in Schaerbeek, which she founded in September 2000. But the journey from the shy little girl who struggled to communicate to the woman who now teaches, choreographs and nurtures young dancers was anything but straightforward. It took determination, rejection, heartbreak, financial uncertainty and a great deal of courage. Above all, it took Christine's refusal to give up on the one thing that made sense to her.
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Since her parents saw that Christine danced all the time from her tender years and seemed so happy to be doing so, they agreed to let her audition for the Conservatoire de la danse de Bruxelles, the Dance Conservatory in Brussels that allows students to follow an educational route that works like a regular school, along with several hours of dance. Normally, children who are inclined to follow this path start at the school at the age of eight. However, Christine auditioned at 14. She had to take classes with the little ones to gain the basics, on top of the classes for students her age. She also took separate dance lessons in addition to improve her technique.
Christine was studying with the goal of becoming a dancer and, since she loved it, one would think that everything was rosy. But in the years when she was learning dance, the competition and comparison between students was very strong, The pedagogical systems that handle teaching in a way that takes into account the mental health and support of students were not as developed as today. These days the focus is more on the positive development of the child in all spheres. Thus for Christine, it was really hard despite doing what she really loved.
Christine, like many other students, stuck to learning despite the difficulties they faced and eventually finished her schooling. During the final exam in Expressional Choreography, she recalls having an external jury attending along with her own teachers from the school. No sooner had she finished than the jury congratulated her on her creativity and interpretation. They told her that she had to hurry up and audition at all the good dance schools around her and not waste time. It was the first time Christine received genuine feedback and appreciation for her art. They encouraged her to go to schools that encouraged expression & creativity.
Christine auditioned for the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, which was called Folkwang Hochschule in German. It is internationally renowned as the cradle of German expressive dance and modern dance theatre, famously serving as the creative home and training ground for the iconic choreographer Pina Bausch.
For Christine and many other Belgian and European dancers, most German public universities have zero tuition fees. They however are not free of cost as the student still pays mandatory administrative and registration fees. Germany is one of the few European countries that offers such a high level of education and training in dance, with the advantage of being accessible to families who can't afford expensive private schools. While the financial barrier to entry is low, the artistic barrier to entry is extremely high because of the number of aspirants.
When Christine arrived for the audition at this school, her paperwork was not yet ready. In Germany, especially, everything has to be in order to proceed, and she wasn't allowed to audition. She was completely devastated, as this was the school in which she had been pinning her hopes since the teachers at the exam she had passed said that this was where she would find her true calling. The style of the school was less traditional and purist than others.
She, however, got into the Cologne University of Music and Dance to learn ballet. This school had a more classical approach and, while she started going to school there, she would spend her free afternoons travelling to Essen and wandering around the grounds of the school of her choice. She didn't know what she was looking for there or who she needed to talk to, but her instinct guided her.
One afternoon, while she was in the parking lot, she met a man who was near his car and seemed to be from the school, and she approached him. This Frenchman turned out to be Dominique Mercy, who was himself a great dancer in the Pina Bausch company. He was a long-time dancer and co-creator with Pina Bausch’s company, the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. Read about Pina Bausch at pinabausch.org. and about Dominique Mercy here. https://www.pinabausch.org/person/dominique_mercy
When he realised that Christine spoke French, the discussion led to a great turn in her fortune. He helped complete her papers for the school in German and spoke about a second round of auditions that would be happening in October for students who were from really far away. He got her a slot in those auditions, and the rest is history. This was in 1993.
For several months, Christine travelled up and down from Cologne to Essen, as she couldn’t find lodging in Essen. Her room was in a cellar. Her living condition were very basic. She had to take the longer routes offered by the train company to access the very cheap or free tickets. This gave her enough of a struggle for several months, but nothing was a problem because now she was learning a dancing style in an environment more suitable for her.
The school hosted students from all over the world, and Christine was one of the youngest. These students were from all walks of life. This experience offered Christine a lot of exposure. She was finally comfortable dancing ballet and could now find her own rhythm.
In the second year, she managed to get a place to live in Essen. I say 'place to live' because she lived in the front room of an apartment where one of her friends from school had a room. Christine lived behind the curtain in that room ;).
She did two years at the school in Essen. During the summer holidays back home in Brussels, Christine met a young Belgian man who was studying in Atlanta. She decided that she would like to join him in the United States and began considering how she might do so. Unfortunately, we all know what a young summer love means, and Christine says that now she does too. He went back to the States and when they met at the end of the year on his return to visit his family at Xmas, broke up with her. Christine says she should have gone back to Germany and she probably could have, but her family saw her through this first heartbreak. They weren't eager to let Christine be alone, and so she stayed in Brussels.
She got lucky and got a job as a dancer in a contemporary dance company, Arcoballo, and she worked with them for about five years. She was also happy because this company followed a style called the Cecchetti method, which is one of the most famous and foundational classical ballet training styles in the world. Also it was part of what she had already learnt in Germany. Christine feels that this method is more respectful of the body. This technique was used a lot by contemporary dancers and choreographers. She got to practice it every day at her job, which she thinks of as a great opportunity.
Read about Cecchetti here https://www.cecchetti.org
She also got a chance to learn the method in more detail when she went on an exchange to Juneau in Alaska. Her teacher, the late Brynar Mehl, was a renowned master ballet teacher who heavily incorporated the Cecchetti method into his instruction. Christine recalls his incredible artistry and gentle soul. He had an ability to make the demanding mechanisms of ballet feel profoundly connected to human expression.
Christine then continued learning Cecchetti with the late Janet Panetta. Janet Panetta was an internationally revered master dance pedagogue who famously taught classical ballet rooted in the Cecchetti method to contemporary dancers in Brussels. She was known for teaching dance to the individual, with their body as the most important aspect. The training was about understanding the body and its anatomy. This kind of academic foundation was not usually easily available to dancers.
Read about Janet here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Panetta
Christine started giving classes in different schools in Brussels alongside the five years she worked in the theatre company. She encountered teaching approaches that were very different from the philosophy she was developing for herself, particularly in the way teachers approached individual bodies. She wanted to build a different pedagogical approach—one more in tune with her vision and values. However, as she was employed by the schools, she did not have much choice. These experiences helped her find her own way of teaching.
She wanted to work with people. She understood that everyone has a different body. While she still worked to make a living in these schools, she invested time and money in undergoing different forms of training on weekends and in her free time. She attended lectures and regularly wrote to different training workshops either to discuss her approach or learn from them.
Christine finally decided that she was going to open her own school to do what made sense to her. She wanted to work with her own methods of training and her own dance routines. She also wanted to open a dance company that would be a platform to showcase these choreographies. She started searching for a building. She then had to find and convince a bank that could see potential in her. She was a young dancer and teacher with big ambitions but very limited financial resources. She managed to find a bank that believed in her project and got a loan for the building and its renovation. Transforming this structure would cost more than the building itself.
Needless to say, during those initial years of the building and start of the school, money was very tight. She did all sorts of work. She worked as a dancer in operas at La Monnaie. She worked in advertisements. She worked as a model at the Marriage Exhibition, or 'Salon du mariage', as a bride, trying on beautiful dresses. She even participated in a video where she played Audrey Hepburn. She worked as a choreographer in fashion show line-ups. She was in dire straits with her project for the school, which was not yet giving her any money. She herself drew a very small monthly salary for several years to stay afloat. She also taught dance in a European school. About three years after its launch, it became clear that the school had found its footing and could continue. So, finally, she could give up all the other side hustles.
Today, she says it's still a small establishment and she remains closely involved in every aspect of the school and has been able to preserve its original philosophy. The downside is that she has all the issues to handle too. The school has had about 180 students a year since 2003. She cannot take on more students due to space constraints and because of the quality she offers, which she won't compromise on. Now she has taken on an additional teacher, Jade, for the advanced contemporary group.
Her daughters, Victoria and Pauline, and another dancer, Antoinette, have helped her since 2022. She was starting to have an issue with one foot, the foot she needs to jump on to show the little ones their moves. Finally, they stepped in and handled the kids' groups. She now supervises them and quite literally steps in only when required.
She thinks that the amount of administrative work she needs to do to run a business has now gone up significantly. She also spends a lot of time on the final performance show of the school and of the dance company that she and her students have created.
Much of the time, creative work and personal investment that she puts into the school is not directly reflected in her income. But passion pushes her on.
Christine is still teaching and creating choreographies. She can proudly say that some of her students have been taken into big schools and will follow dance professionally. The word in her dance school name, 'La Passerelle', means footbridge, walkway, gangway or gateway in English. Christine says her school is the bridge that allows a young artist onto a path towards what he or she wants.
Christine would like to mention Udi Malka. She took extra classes with him when she was a student, and over the years, he has become a true friend. He has always supported her—first when she was a student herself, and later when she opened her own school. She shares a very strong bond with him, and he has been a tremendous source of support for her throughout the years.
Christine inspires respect with her perseverance despite all the difficulties she faced as a young child. Dance gave her so much, and she, in turn, gave herself to dance with passion, consistency and respect. In doing so, she became a fine example of what it means to follow one's dreams.
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