Artists’ Entrance: Mario Barrantes Espinoza

In Artists’ Entrance, we ask (international) performing artists questions about their lives and work. Each of these interviews is a unique portrait that provides insight into the artistic practice and life of creators and performers. We re-introduce the format with Mario Barrantes Espinoza as our first guest. Mario is a Costa Rican-Nicaraguan artist based in Brussels. Their piece FLESH CAN’T CAN’  T  NOT’T ‘TIS FLESH H… was selected for het TheaterFestival 2025.

Mario Barrantes Espinoza

interview 02.09.2025

Dancers speak up!

The Dancer’s Handbook: a welcome addition to the toolkit of any dancer

Ever since the #metoo movement in 2017, the Belgian dance scene has seen itself come under increasing scrutiny as a place in which imbalances and abuses of power have caused, and continue to cause, harm to the individuals working in it. Thanks to the work of activists such as Ilse Ghekiere, and organisations such as Sociaal Fonds Podiumkunsten, the Voices of Dance and Engagement Arts (of which Gala Moody, one of the co-authors of The Dancer’s Handbook, has been a founding member), attention has been drawn to try to improve the working conditions of dancers, to not only make sure that organisations establish a necessary system of support for these often precarious, temporary workers, but to empower individual dance artists to use their own voices to speak up and speak out to power when it is abused. The Dancer’s Handbook: A Practical Guide to Reimagining Dance, Body and Society by OFEN Co-Arts, written by dancers Gala Moody and Michael Carter, comes as a welcome addition to this development of tools to assist dancers trying to navigate a path through the often very rocky terrain of a career in dance.  

Dan Mussett

review 01.09.2025

Macc(h)abées – Sophie Warnant/Sujet Barré

A Beginning, an End, and the Grand Doom in Between

‘Death is fast, doom moves slow’, writes Johanna Hedva in How to Tell When We Will Die. Macc(h)abées by theatre maker and performer Sophie Warnant functions like a physical capsule spilling these temporalities and a seven-year-long research on the end of life. How to unpack themes like euthanasia, burial practices and countless conversations with doctors and patients in a dance without words? And how could writing on a dance like that keep up with the bodily acuteness the performance is striving for?

Anne-Lene Nöldner

review 06.08.2025

Frames – Not Standing/Alexander Vantournhout

Body movement in triptych

Choreographer Alexander Vantournhout and his three co-performers (Chia-Hung Chung, Axel Guérin and Emmi Väisänen) invite us once again to see a performance that defies gravity. The troupe, Not Standing, aptly describing their goal in their name, are looking for ways to challenge the limits of the body. This time, they take us outside to find positions that promise tension in the neck, numb legs and an aching back. But the spectacle will make you forget all these pains. Frames presents body movement as a triptych: a skylight, a window and a pillar. Three frames for three planes of existence: heaven, earth and spirit. What can a body struggling for its balance tell us about existence?

Ugnė Noreikė

review 03.07.2025

Mossy Eye Moor – Louise Vanneste

Beyond the visible

The 30th edition of Kunstenfestivaldesarts is the start of a new decade committed to defending the unusual, nurturing a space that questions the present, and seeking what lies beyond the visible. Louise Vanneste’s dance performance Mossy Eye Moor fits snugly within this framework and brings it to life in a unique way. It challenges our impatient times with a call to stay observant and radically open.

Ugnė Noreikė

review 04.06.2025

Welcome to Asbestos Hall – Trajal Harrell

Spending time with Trajal Harrell and friends

During Kunstenfestivaldesarts, choreographer Trajal Harrell invites us to ‘an atmospheric evening, more experience than performance.’ La Verrière is transformed into an informal space for sharing work in progress and other events. But does the context of a prestigious festival truly allow Harrell’s dreams of informality and community to come to fruition? What does this gesture mean in the totality of the choreographer’s vast and rich body of work?

Kristof van Baarle

review 02.06.2025

Panel talk: Dance as a common good? Dance heritage between author and community

(Re)listen to the conversation between Delphine Hesters, Briana Ashely Stuart, Michiel Vandevelde and Haider Al Timimi.

To mark the launch of Etcetera 179: Belichaamd Erfgoed (Embodied Heritage), Delphine Hesters spoke with choreographers and performers Briana Ashley Stuart, Michiel Vandevelde and Haider Al Timimi about questions around authorship and dance. The conversation took place on 26 February 2025 at STUK, Leuven, during the first edition of the festival Body Of Work and is now also available in podcast form. Listen through the link in bio or on your preferred podcast app.

multimedia 02.06.2025