Lasgo
The Belgian dance scene takes great pleasure in welcoming the return of an old acquaintance. After three years of silence, Lasgo is back again, and with a new face to boot and boost its image. ‘I have been singing ever since the time I could sing,’ the attractive 18-year old Jelle van Dael smiles. ‘I know very well it won’t be easy to make people forget the chanteuse Evy, but I’ll give my all to the attempt. This kind of opportunity comes once in a lifetime. And I don’t mind listeners taking a critical attitude towards me.’ With her head knocking at the clouds but with her feet firmly planted on terra firma, Jelle is starting out on her new adventurous journey. But what about this Jelle name? What gives? Is that not rather a strange name for a young woman? ‘Jelle is indeed something special for a girl’, smiles the blonde Jelle, `but I myself am also a bit special. I hope to be able to prove that I have what it takes to be taken for a born stage-animal.’ Up to now, that kind of animal magnetism has been in evidence only to the viewers of JIM, where Jelle emerged as the winner with ‘Let’s go Lasgo’. Although the first introduction to an audience at large will not be long in coming. ‘I hope to be performing as often as possible,’ thus the lead singer. ‘But I am aiming at bigger things. I want not only to become the face of Lasgo as soon as possible, but be the personification of Lasgo itself, wholly and totally.’ No question then about the ambition that drives this young performer and about her perfectionism. She may be playful and lighthearted and a tad unstructured and disorganized, and she may live in a land that fosters dreams, but, above all else, she is ad rem, that is, she has a practical side to her character as well. To the question how she feels standing on the threshold of her new career, her answer is, not co-incidentally, a direct reference to the title of her first Lasgo-single: ‘Out of my mind’. Jelle van Dael celebrated on 2 May her eighteenth birthday. She lives in Opglabeek. She is a night-hawk, staying awake into the early morning hours, then loves to sleep in late. As a teenager, her musical preferences were widespread, but since she discovered dance, she has become wholly dedicated to this style. Memorable quote: ‘I have no intention to go prancing about half-naked on the stage. But I have no objections to being considered sexy.’
