Zulu Nation is this year once again returning to the Kaaitheater with the Battle of the Year – Benelux selection. On Saturday 30 May, B-Boy teams from Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg will compete for a ticket to the legendary BOTY International. Lezarts Urbains is programming Belgian and international bands and dance crews from the amateur and professional circuits on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon.

Marianne Van Kerkhoven is one of the leading and most influential dramaturges and critics/essayists in Flanders and beyond. Her aesthetic and political views have inspired generations of directors and choreographers. Together with Sarma, the Kaaitheater and the Kunstenfestivaldesarts have invited her to give a talk on the last day of the festival, to be held on the stage of the Kaaitheater.

In Japanese, suteru means “rid oneself of” and tabi “journey” or “occasion”. Suteru Tabi is the moving story of a young man who is trying to cope with the death of his father. Out of the loss and mourning he becomes stronger and succeeds in taking responsibility for his life. With just four chairs and a handful of props, the Japanese author and director Shiro Maeda creates a performance rich in imagery that combines poetry with humour, magic and realism.

In the mini-trilogy Walk Talk Chalk, walk stands for movement, talk for word and text and chalk for the mark or trace. In each module of his triptych, Pierre Droulers tries to penetrate to the root of the following question: how does man make his existence tolerable? He moves, talks and creates....

Two Brussels-based collectives – the Dutch-speaking Tristero and the French-speaking Transquinquennal – have decided to work together. Both partners in this exceptional coalition have a reputation for seeking out unknown and/or contemporary pieces. In Coalition they take a closer look at events which need not have happened and might not have happened, but which did happen: from the most banal traffic accidents to major disasters involving thousands of deaths. In other words: things could have turned out differently.