October at Kaaitheater

CITY:LAND

In the new festival CITY:LAND, Kaaitheater is leaving its theatre halls and taking to the streets. For 5 days, artists will explore the city as a shared space in a divided world. 
CITY:LAND brings together two themes that have long been prominent in the Kaaitheater programme: ecology (cfr. ten editions of Burning Ice and more programmes in the context of Imagine2020) and city & society (cfr. Festival Kanal, a.o.).
This first edition, from 9 to 13 October, is based on and around the place de la Monnaie during the week leading up to the local elections.

Each edition also focuses on one of the Kaaitheater artists-in-residence. This year, Michiel Vandevelde is presenting his Precarious Pavilions #2. 

Together with the 431 collective – comprising Lietje Bauwens and Wouter De Raeve – he is bringing more than a dozen artists to the place de la Monnaie. During the day, they will conduct experiments on the square. In the evenings, they will document these interventions and engage in debates. Participating artists are Alex Zakkas & Kurt Tichy (Constant), Beny Wagner & Sasha Litvintseva, Hana Miletić, Helena Dietrich, Martin Belou, Naïmé Perrette, Ola Hassanain, Rozalinda Borcila, Vivien Tauchmann, Parasite 2.0, Sepake Angiama and Mijke van der Drift. Read an interview with 431 on the new local here.

In the evenings as well as during the day, you'll come across performances, installations and exhibitions by Anne Collod, Ant Hampton, Kevin Trappeniers, Roland Gunst & Sibo Kanobana, Architecture Workroom Brussels, Sarah van Lamsweerde and Sarah Vanagt. Read the CITY:LAND press release here.

on & around place de la Monnaie | 9>13/10 | performance/installation/video/talks/expo

Laila Soliman & Stacy Hardy
Museum of Lungs - Belgian première

Museum of Lungs by performer and writer Stacy Hardy and director Laila Soliman is a play about pain, trauma, and illness as they relate to capitalism, vulnerability, sociality and history. Informed by Hardy’s experience of living with tuberculosis, it draws on archive material from around the world. Directed by Laila Soliman and performed by Hardy, along with musicians Neo Muyanga and Nancy Mounir, Museum of Lungs is a musical documentary performance about love, loneliness, fragility, and death, showing how vulnerability and disease might initiate a resistance to power structures that operate through strength, violence and repression.

Museum of Lungs is being created in South-Africa, will première in Basel and tour around Europe. 

Kaaistudio's | 3 & 4/10 | theatre/music | in English

Esther Salamon & Boglàrka Börcsök
Monument 0.5: The Valeska Gert Monument - Belgian première

The emphasis of choreographer Eszter Salamon’s MONUMENT series is not on tribute or commemoration. Her primary aim is to enable us to deal with history in a different way. And if there is one dance artist that deserves a monument, it is certainly the German Valeska Gert (1892-1978). Her fearless, provocative performances, her love of the grotesque and burlesque, her preference for the marginal and her search for a new presentation of the body, undoubtedly make her one of the most important artists of her time.
Along with Boglàrka Börcsök, Eszter Salamon translates this energy from the past to the present. 

The production premièred in PACT Zollverein and is touring around Europe since.

Kaaitheater | 18>19/10 | dans

3x Kate McIntosh!

The work of Kaaitheater artist-in-residence Kate McIntosh transcends the boundaries of performance, theatre, video, and installation. The striking thing about her productions is that she always bridges the distance between the performers and the audience, as well as her prefernece for theatrical images. She is presenting three productions in the space of one week, playfully balancing on the intersection between science, entertainment, experiment, vaudeville, philosophy and eclectic stories. Welcome to Kate's universe! (Read an interview with Kate here)

Worktable
Worktable is an installation with various rooms that you explore one by one. Once inside, you are given instructions, equipment, safety goggles, and materials that you can use. It's up to you to decide how things come apart: Kate McIntosh gives you a hammer, you do the rest. Worktable premièred in 2011 and has been touring around the world since.
On Sunday 28/10 there's a special edition open to children 6+: Worktable for Kids.
Kanal - Centre Pompidou | 24>28/10 | live installation

In Many Hands
In In Many Hands, Kate McIntosh explores tactility. She invites you to test and to touch, but also to listen and to smell. Along with other visitors, but without speaking, you will experiment with materials in a series of sensorial ‘situations’. In Many Handsis part laboratory, part expedition, part meditation: follow your nose and your curiosity! Since its 2016 première the performance has toured around Europe.
Kaaitheater | 23>24/10 | performance

Dark Matter
Flanked by two clumsy assistants, artist-in-residence Kate McIntosh stands on the stage as a high priestess in a glittering gown. During a kind of revue, they passionately devote themselves to a series of household experiments. Dark Matter is an extremely funny production that simultaneously evokes a sense of ominousness.
Kaaitheater | 26/10 | theatre | in English

Benjamin Vandewalle & Platform K
Common Ground

De leefwerelden van Kaaitheater artist-in-residence Benjamin Vandewalle, Kobe Wyffels en Hannah Bekmans konden niet verder uit elkaar liggen. In Common Ground gaan ze via beweging op zoek naar raakvlakken én verschillen. De ene keer voeren ze fragiele en intieme duetten op, dan weer ontspint er zich een competitieve krachtmeting. Wat kunnen ze van elkaar leren? Het is sinds 2013 geleden dat Vandewalle nog eens zelf op scène stond. Deze voorstelling is voor hem een terugkeer naar zijn vroegere, dansante werk. Kobe Wyffels en Hannah Bekmans zijn allebei verbonden aan Platform-K, de Gentse danswerkplaats die mensen met een beperking opleidt tot professionele dansers.

Common Ground was selected for the 2018 Flemish Theaterfestival. Also in 2018, Benjamin Vandewalle was voted one of Tanz magazine's promising talents of the year. Common Ground premiered in February and has been touring since.

Kaaitheater | 27>28/10 | dance

Walter Hus
Supersonic Flora - album presentation

Seeing and hearing Walter Hus play the piano is an unforgettable experience, as his memorable concerts at the Kaaistudios between 2000 and 2005 demonstrated. This time, his piano will stand on the main stage of Kaaitheater itself. In his new album Supersonic Flora, Walter Hus is returning to a number of pivotal pieces from his career and adapting them into brand-new compositions for solo piano. The pieces range from beautiful, radical, and minimalist compositions from the 1980s to more melodious works from the 1990s and a recent jazzy piece that he composed in memory of a friend who died.

Kaaitheater | 20/10 | music