#Society

Arm wrestling with current affairs

Ecopolis 2020

AGAIN(ST) NATURE

talk debate online

Online

Sun 18.10.20

The year is 2020. From Australia to the Campine, nature is on fire. There is rapid deforestation, constant building projects, and millions of species of plants and animals are under imminent threat of extinction. How long can we continue to saw off the branch on which we sit? For this sixth edition, Ecopolis is again inviting a broad range of writers, academic experts and thinkers from civil society.

Khadija El Kharraz Alami

Re-claiming Space

performance theatre

Kaaitheater

Fri 09.10 - Sat 10.10.20

Each evening Khadija El Kharraz Alami invites somebody else on stage. A performer, artist, actor, writer, human being, dancer... always a woman. You witness their first meeting. Re-claiming Space is an exploration of the space of womanhood and how to transcend it. Khadija’s work process is characterized by leaving certain things undetermined, so the performance takes shape onstage.

Benjamin Verdonck

De tijger eet de zebra en de vogel vliegt verschrikt weg

theatre

Kaaitheater

Fri 19.06 - Sat 20.06.20

Please note: this show has been cancelled to help contain the spread of the new coronavirus.

Benjamin Verdonck builds and operates an unusual planetarium of sticky tape, ropes and cardboard.

Orla Barry

Spin, Spin, Scheherazade

performance

Kaaistudio's

Wed 04.03 - Thu 05.03.20

Spin, Spin, Scheherazade is a humorous and passionate monologue rooted in a form of artistic barefoot anthropology. Orla Barry directs Einat Tuchman, who explores the boundaries of art, gender, and the rural everyday. Coincidence, humour and a subtle language game are the ingredients of a performance that blends oral historiography with personal memories.

Suze Milius/House Crying Yellow Tears

Suze Milius

theatre

Kaaitheater

Wed 22.01.20

The first talk shows aired in the 1950s and they have determined the evening rhythm in many living rooms ever since. But the invention of the internet has definitively pushed the format into decline. In TALK SHOW, Suze Milius bids them farewell. It is both a retrospective and a look ahead into the future, an attempt to ascribe value to everything that gradually disappears, and an ode to the details of our existence.

Boyzie Cekwana & Danya Hammoud

Bootlegged

dance

Kaaistudio's

Tue 21.01 - Wed 22.01.20

Across the span of a decade and a half, Boyzie Cekwana and Danya Hammoud have kept a nodding acknowledgement of each other’s trajectories and strategies for survival. Now they come together so they can stand, one next to the other, one on top of the other, turning, bending and entangling around each other. 'We come together so we can both reach down to the top of our boots and take out our bootlegged goods, our smuggled stories.'

Eszter Salamon

MONUMENT 0.8: Manifestations

dance performance

Kaaitheater

Fri 17.01 - Sat 18.01.20

Why is it important to cast a spotlight on the marginalized history of feminism in Romania and Eastern Europe? And what might this mean for our collective, historical consciousness? With a collage of feminist voices, artistic gestures, historical avant-garde, and traditional songs, Eszter Salamon focuses on Romanian histories.

E. Dietvorst, A. Di Marino & D. Roofthooft

MEMENTO MORI!

theatre

Kaaistudio's

Thu 16.01 - Sat 18.01.20

In MEMENTO MORI!, documentary filmmaker and visual artist Els Dietvorst brings two solos together. The first is performed by Dirk Roofthooft, one of Flanders’ most iconic actors, the second by the Brussels-based actress Aurelie Di Marino. The first monologue mirrors the second. As a diptych, they reflect on themes such as individualism, globalization and migration, as well as the alienation and disenchanted world to which they lead.

Brussels Brecht - Eislerkoor

Mélancolie aux 5 blocs

music theatre

Kaaistudio's

Thu 09.01 - Sat 11.01.20

A stone’s throw from the Kaaistudios, there is a row of dilapidated and unhealthy social housing blocks that will soon be demolished: these are the five blocks of the Rempart des Moines. The current residents have to make way for more affluent buyers. The Brussels Brecht-Eisler Choir is presenting a musical theatre piece that attempts to capture and evoke their confusion and uncertainty.

Jan Lauwers & Needcompany

All the good

theatre

Kaaitheater

Wed 08.01 - Fri 10.01.20

All the Good is a story with a double autobiographical background: on the one hand, the life of Israeli elite soldier and war veteran Elik Niv, and on the other, Jan Lauwers’ life with Grace Ellen Barkey and their children – in a house and workspace in Molenbeek. It is a love story in an age in which Europe is throwing its values to the wind and a growing group of people is being seduced by hate and intolerance.

Louis Janssens & Timo Sterckx

The Greatest Show on Earth

theatre

Kaaistudio's

Fri 13.12 - Sat 14.12.19

Louis Janssens and Timo Sterckx used the book Europeana, a Brief History of the Twentieth Century by Patrik Ourednik to make a production about history, about graduating, about beginning. It might be a very long story.

Bashar Murkus

The Museum

theatre

Kaaistudio's

Tue 10.12 - Wed 11.12.19

A man commits a terrorist attack in a museum of contemporary art, killing 49 children and a teacher. He waits on death row for seven years. A week before his execution, he convinces the police detective who was in charge of his case to join him for his last meal. What meaning do these two men hope to find in the death that they both desire, each in their own way?

Stefaan Van Brabandt & Johan Heldenbergh

Marx

theatre

Kaaitheater

Wed 04.12.19

Johan Heldenbergh-as-Marx reflects on an eventful life and body of thought. Where did he make mistakes? And where has he been proved right? Can his philosophy still be relevant and liberating? In times of uncertainty and growing inequality, Marx aims to be a confrontational, critical, and impassioned plea for freedom and human dignity.

Michiel Vandevelde

Human Landscapes I

performance

Kaaistudio's

Thu 28.11 - Sat 30.11.19

In the late 1920s, Nâzım Hikmet introduced free verse to Turkish poetry, and he was thus the first modern Turkish poet. He wrote the majority of Human Landscapes, his magnum opus, while in prison. The five hundred-page epic was only published posthumously, divided into five ‘books’. Michiel Vandevelde staged Book I last year, commissioned by steierische herbst. Book II now follows.

Michiel Vandevelde

Human Landscapes II

performance

Kaaistudio's

Fri 29.11 - Sat 30.11.19

In the late 1920s, Nâzım Hikmet introduced free verse to Turkish poetry, and he was thus the first modern Turkish poet. He wrote the majority of Human Landscapes, his magnum opus, while in prison. The five hundred-page epic was only published posthumously, divided into five ‘books’. Michiel Vandevelde staged Book I last year, commissioned by steierische herbst. Book II now follows.