The selection committee of the 2026 Javier & Marta Villavecchia Fellowships has decided to award them to the following candidates:

• Sander Vloebergs, dancer, choreographer and Doctor in Theology from KU Leuven and in Literature from the University of Antwerp, for the project Genealogies of Ecstasy in Mysticism and Dance.
• Chirine El Ansary, storyteller, performer and Doctor in Practice-as-Research from Goldsmiths (University of London), for the project Mundus Vocalis: Activating Sufi Texts Through Performative Storytelling.

Sander Vloebergs brings together mystical theology, embodied practice and contemporary art. Holding doctorates in Theology (KU Leuven) and Literature (University of Antwerp), he has developed innovative research that integrates historical study with choreographic exploration. His projects include liturgical dance performances, curatorial work and academic publications, always with a focus on the body as a site of knowledge and as a medium for exploring the sacred.

In Autumn 2025, he will join the Haas Library with the project Genealogies of Ecstasy in Mysticism and Dance. The research examines how the concept of ecstasy has been understood and embodied across different historical moments—from the medieval mystical traditions of the Low Countries and the Rhineland, through the innovations of modern dance in the twentieth century, to contemporary explorations of altered states in art. Drawing on the Haas Library’s collections as well as his own choreographic practice, Vloebergs will establish a dialogue between textual traditions and embodied research, with the aim of developing a contemporary choreographic vocabulary of ecstasy and rethinking how mysticism, movement and aesthetic knowledge intersect across time.

Chirine El Ansary interweaves oral tradition, embodied performance and cultural memory. Trained in theatre, dance and performance-making, she has developed a practice rooted in the interaction between body, voice, narrative and place. Her performances, presented internationally in venues ranging from museums to prisons, refugee camps and historic neighborhoods, are based on oral traditions such as The Thousand and One Nights and on local stories that bear witness to resilience and cultural transformation.

In Spring 2026, she will be in residence at the Haas Library with the project Mundus Vocalis: Activating Sufi Texts Through Performative Storytelling. The project explores how Sufi poetics—particularly in the writings of Ibn Arabi, Rumi, Rabia al-Adawiyya, al-Hallaj and Ibn Sina—can be brought back to life through oral storytelling, becoming a living archive of resilience and belonging. Combining the study of Sufi texts with collaborative workshops and performative experiments, she will investigate how embodied storytelling can generate “immaterial architectures” of solace and resistance, offering new ways of inhabiting memory, spirituality and urban change.