A small act of intimate protest

What growing wild lemon plants taught me

Exhausted from witnessing how life (human and not) is reduced to a mere techno-element of the neo-liberal machine, in the silence of my room, I cultivated limoni for the future. Somewhere between potting soil and fiction, these little green dreams snuck into the interstices of my confined life and together we began to imagine a garden, dispersed yet interconnected. 

Matteo De Blasio

essay 12.01.2023

Glitches, memes and playbackshows

Performance in the post-internet era

Drag is gaining popularity and visibility at a rapid pace. With the body as a canvas and the internet as its inspiration, an exciting playground emerges for the drag artist. Simon Baetens zooms in on this whimsical art form.

Simon Baetens

essay 10.11.2022

قصص نابعة من الشارع

شكسبير سقطت عكازه  في بغداد

إبتلى المخرج البلجيكي من أصل عراقي انكيدو خالد بمِيكروب المسرح منذ شبابه في العراق بفضل شكسبير وبريخت. غير أن الحرب والفوضى التي أعقبت سقوط نظام صدام الديكتاتوري دفعته هو وغيره من المسرحيين الشباب إلى التخلي عن الذخيرة المسرحية الغربية. فالواقع الذي عاشوه لا يمكن بأي حال من الأحوال أن يجد إنعكاسا في المرجعية الغربية. يروي انكيدو خالد كيف تاثرت نشأته كشخص وكفنان بالواقع المٌرّ للعراق في القرن الحادي والعشرين.

Enkidu Khaled

essay 08.11.2022

Pomiędzy pandemią a protestem

Wzmożenie aktywizmu performatywnego w Polsce.

Artysta Szymon Adamczak podróżuje pomiędzy Niderlandami a jego krajem rodzinnym – Polską. Od czasu wybuchu pandemii Covid-19, jest świadkiem tego, jak liczna grupa polskich obywateli – artystów, aktywistów, pracowników społecznych, młodzieży i rodzin – wychodzi na ulice, protestuje i działa w przestrzeni publicznej z nowo odnalezionym poczuciem pilności. Polityczny nacisk antydemokratycznej, skrajnie prawicowej ideologii jest większy niż kiedykolwiek, ale wraz z nim wzrasta determinacja ludzi wykrzykujących: wypierdalać!

Szymon Adamczak

essay 07.11.2022

Generation XIII – a documentary podcast

5 dancers * 3 years * 1 school

Every three years 1000 young dancers from all over the world audition for PARTS, the renowned school for contemporary dance in Brussels, directed by choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. Every three years, only 40 are chosen to enter the Training Cycle. The documentary podcast Generation XIII drafts a portrait of the generation that has been studying at PARTS since September 2019, through the experiences and voices of five students. Through interviews and audio-diary entries, we follow Eleni from Greece, Marllon from Brazil, Zoé from France, Renátó from Hungary and Kia from New Zealand, all through their training.

Delphine Hesters

multimedia 20.09.2022

When Playwrights Complicate Dramatic Form

Recent Developments in African American Plays of the 2010s

African American drama, theater and performance has a rich and complex history. Only recently, however, the U.S. theater establishment seems to recognize the work of young Black playwrights more often. This is evident, for example, from the awards and nomination lists of multiple prestigious prize committees such as the Pulitzer Prize for Drama or the Tony Awards for Broadway productions. The winning plays are not only lauded for addressing racial themes, but for doing this in a way that experiments with dramatic conventions and African American performance history. How exactly, then, do these playwrights engage with dramatic form? How are their stage experiments connected to topical debates sparked by the Black Lives Matter movement? Above all, how is their work relevant for the Belgian context?

Jade Thomas

essay 10.08.2022

Bronx Gothic – Okwui Okpokwasili

On May 8, 2022, Nigerian-American artist Okwui Okpokwasili’s Bronx Gothic (2014) at Kunstenfestivaldesarts did not end. It didn’t end because not only its story rides on the perpetual logic of dreams and sea waves, but also because this time it skipped a few beats from its climax and denouement—more on this and the new iteration of the show by Paris-based Kenyan artist Wanjiru Kamuyu later.

Eylül Fidan Akıncı

review 23.05.2022