Search form

menu menu
  • Daily & Weekly newsletters
  • Buy & download The Bulletin
  • Comment on our articles

Culture Beat: Latino percussion, classical music, chocolate galore, arty days for kids and Saint-Nicholas steams in

13:39 16/11/2012

The Bulletin’s weekly arts round-up in Brussels and beyond

DANCE 

SYSMO, La Tentation

The downtown venue with a Spanish/Latin American ambiance hosts a new monthly concept devoted to rhythm and dance. Organised by Collectif Matters (12 percussionists, two brass musicians, actors, dancers and one band leader) it explores gestural language expression, as developed by the Argentinian Santiago Vasquez for his group La Bomba de Tiempo. Join the improvisational two-hour session and beat the winter blues.

November 15, 20.00

Lia Haraki (Cyprus, above), Bozar

The Cypriot choreographer and performer presents Tune In as part of her country’s EU presidency cultural programme, which comes to an end on December 31. Focusing on human identity, her work integrates voice, text and different types of theatre. 

November 16, 20.00 

 

MUSIC

The Pretty Things, Le Sounds

The Brussels Rhythm and Blues Club welcomes the legendary 1960s UK band featuring Phil May, Dick Taylor (the Rolling Stones’ first bass player) and Frank Holland for an acoustic set that promises to take you down memory lane. Support comes from BRBC house band Jive with Eric Moens and Afrim Jahja. Italian food is available plus wine and beer. €20.

November 17, 21.00

Music Marathon, Bozar

Classical music fans are in for a veritable feast with back-to-back concerts, presentations, meets and greets, screenings and open rehearsals. Among the big names are Cecilia Bartoli (above), Nelson Freire, Leif Ove Andsnes and Antonio Pappano, performing Die Zauberflöte by Mozart and other major works. A bar is open before, during and after concerts and Bozar TV presents live interviews and last-minute information.

November 18-24 

 

NIGHTLIFE

HotNights party, Autoworld

Party owls should be happy to see the return of the HotNights team to Brussels, celebrating here their seventh anniversary and reappearance on the Brussels late-night scene. With special guests from City Lights and DJ Elias. €5.

November 17, 22.30-5.00

EVENT

Brussels Chocolate Week, across Brussels

Myriad activities worship at the temple of Belgium’s culinary nirvana chocolate. The event kicks off at Midi station at 11.30 with a record-breaking giant chocolate train. Then the city’s chocolate shops and artisans reveal why they have put Brussels on the gastronomic map with their pralines, bars and endlessly tempting fare. There are exhibitions, open-door events and guided tours, plus a multitude of occasions to drool, sample and savour the local speciality.

November 19-25


40th Anniversary – Culture Night, Boston University Brussels campus

Boston University’s Brussels campus is combining the sixth edition of its Culture Night with the 40th anniversary of its founding in the capital. Along with celebratory speeches and cake-cutting, local artists and musicians will be centre stage. Visual artists include Sabine Brettschneider, Gilles Daoust, Kevin De Landtsheer, Jan Desmarets, Anic Flahou and Claudia Ignoto. Music is provided by harpists Annamaria Gergely and Camilla Rask, and they will be joined by magician David Zenith.

November 17, 20.00, register at Brussels@bu.edu


Brussels Innova, Brussels Expo

Budding inventors and entrepreneurs should make their way to Heysel for the annual international expo on inventions, research and new technologies. Discover innovations from futuristic to daily-life, original prototypes and success stories from around the world. The fair is attended by businesses, regional bodies, venture capitalists, start-up and spin-off companies and higher education institutions. Plus exhibition, workshops and talks.

November 15-17

 

KIDS

Art Day for Children, Art and History Museum, Cinquantenaire Park

Register now for an activity-packed day (in French and Dutch) for children accompanied by parents. After following the trail of the museum’s dragons, little ones can track American Indians while older children can attempt to identify the assassin of Brother Jehan in the Crime at the Museum game.

November 18, 10.00-17.00, email expotemps@mrah.be


Kunstendag (Arts Day) for children, multiple venues, Brussels and Flanders

The first culture day for children in Brussels and Flanders starts at 10.30 at Cinema Zuid in Antwerp with the show Klik Klak by Dutch collective Lichtbende. In Brussels there are screenings of original dance films. For children three and up.

November 18, Rosas (Brussels); Cinema Zuid (Antwerp)

Family Day Permeke, Bozar

Child-centred activities at Bozar in honour of the Belgian expressionist Constant Permeke to accompany a major retrospective running until January 20. There’s a modelling workshop, fun visits of the expo, games and activities including a giant screen in the Horta Hall for children to play with their own shadow. Workshops for six and up and three and up plus a creche for under-fives.

November 18, 11.00-17.00

Saint-Nicolas / Sinterklaas, Brussels Port

Making a grand (if rather early) entrance in the canal area is Saint-Nicolas, accompanied by a troupe of pères fouettards ('Pete the Moor' in numbers) and Fanfakids (children’s fanfare group). The motley crew are due to arrive in a balloon-festooned steamboat at Quai des Péniches, Place Sainctelette. There’s free entertainment and activities plus a big top. 

November 21, 13.30

 

EXHIBITION

Unexposed. 40 Young Women Artists from Iran, Tour & Taxis

The Belgian non-profit organisation Art Cantara is staging this show of 40 artists from Iran aged between 20 and 40. The majority are exhibiting for the first time and each presents two works. There is no central theme; the works display the depth and variety of art from across the country. Throughout December, talks and conferences on the theme of Iran accompany the show. Free.

Until December 25

 

THEATRE

Improv Comedy Shows, Warehouse Studio Theatre

High-energy entertainment with improvisation from the Brussels Players, followed by Marbles, featuring Ryan Millar and Paul Foxcroft.

November 17 & 18, 20.00, email atctickets@gmail.com 

 

Beyond Brussels

EVENT

Badboot ice-skating rink, Antwerp

The world’s largest floating swimming pool has been transformed into an ice-skating rink for the winter. Wrap up warm and pull on your skates to test the 400m2 rink in Kattendijkdok. After a skating session you can find sustenance at the Brasserie Antoon. 

November 14

 

EXHIBITION

Art, Science & Fiction/Space Oddity. Design Fiction? (above), Grand-Hornu

Two science fiction-themed shows open in Hainaut province’s former industrial power house Grand-Hornu. The Industrial Revolution-period coal mine and model village was transformed into two major exhibition spaces: MAC’s and Grand-Hornu Images. The former is celebrating its 10th anniversary with this collective and multi-disciplinary exhibition, while the latter takes David Bowie’s 1969 hit Space Oddity to reflect on how space travel influenced period culture. 

Art, Science & Fiction, November 18-February 17, MAC’S

Space Oddity. Design Fiction? November 18-March 10, Grand-Hornu Images

 

PERFORMANCE

Next Festival, Kortrijk, Tournai, Lille, Valenciennes

Cross-border contemporary dance and theatre in this Eurometropolis region shows outstanding works from France and Belgium. Jan Fabre’s The Power of Theatrical Madness in Kortrijk is worth catching.

November 15-December 1

 

Written by Sarah Crew