It is my favourite annual event not just in Belgium but on the entire international festival calendar because the work is excitingly innovative, but it is also anchored in those tangible contemporary realities with a multitude of paradoxes that face mankind. The work inspires on various levels and genuinely speaks to audiences.

The kfda might not boast the sun-drenched élan of the Avignon Festival, but then a remarkable number of the shows in Avignon these days are Belgian, anyway. Nor does the kfda seek to replicate the rain-soaked frenzy of the Edinburgh Festival, with its grossly over-priced tickets. It’s much more modest in trumpeting its international profile, but, unlike its larger counterparts, it is a festival vibrating with creativity and resonating unobtrusively with the deepest and most meaningful issues that beset our global societies in the 21st century.

As our crises grow, the need for the kfda will grow, because it actively supports and sponsors artists searching for new ways to communicate, to open debate and to make us feel a human connectedness we have been steadily losing for decades.

Perhaps for this reason, the kfda’s arrival on the festival circuit was timely. The first edition in 1998 coincided with the dawning realisation that post-war affluence, technological progress and globalisation were potentially creating more problems than they could solve. Originally derived from a concept that aimed to unite the two language communities in Belgium, the festival takes its starting point from the need for intercultural dialogue.

This has become a central rationale for the festival’s programming and has expanded to embrace interdisciplinary and exploratory work in dance, theatre, performance art, film and video from across the globe.

The festival plays a crucial role in the production and dissemination of new work across a large number of festivals and performance venues. In building a network of co-producers, kfda assures the financing for new work and provides budgets that accommodate large-scale productions.

Equally, it fosters the development of newcomers to the international circuits through NXTSTP, an initiative financed by the EU’s Culture 2007 programme, providing funding and touring venues for artists needing exposure in order to make their breakthrough. There are many companies and individual artists who owe a massive debt to the kfda for nurturing and stimulating their work, financially, in terms of exposure and, equally, in the opportunities for creative dialogue offered by the festival.

Art, especially the performing arts, cannot exist in a vacuum, and for many performing artists from countries less supportive of innovative and engaged work the festival provides both an encouraging reception and recognition.

The world in Brussels

This year’s programme brings practitioners of long-standing international renown, such as Sheffield’s Forced Entertainment and Madrid-based Argentinean playwright Rodrigo García, together with artists familiar on the Brussels scene: Flemish theatremaker Inne Goris, Brussels playwright Pieter de Buysser, Brussels photographer Jorge Leon, Flemish filmmaker Sarah Vanagt and Dutch theatre director Lotte van den Berg.

More recent discoveries, such Amir Reza Koohestani from Iran, Swiss-Greek duo Ioannis Mandafounis and Fabrice Mazliah (who astonished audiences last year with their breathtaking brand of contact improvisation) and Toshiki Okada (the director/playwright who presents an astutely ironic and amusing view of contemporary Japanese lifestyles) are returning with new work.

As usual, the performances will be accompanied by personal contact with the artists, workshops, talks and debates, as well as exhibitions. The festival equally takes part in transnational projects that give space and support to artists in residence and training for young programmers on international networking.

Hope springs eternal

The kfda is very much a spring festival. It is a festival of hope and optimism that seeks to dispel the gloomy panoply of seemingly irresolvable crises by opening avenues for debate.

The kfda is an event that should make the inhabitants of Belgium proud, whether they are Flemish or Walloon, immigrant or temporary internationals. It shows that it is not merely the EU Commission that places Brussels firmly at the heart of Europe. It enhances Belgium’s creative and cultural identity across the world.

Whether you cancel your life for three weeks to dedicate yourself to everything the festival has to offer or simply catch a show that appeals, the experience will be enriching. Brussels is home to many communities, and the festival aims to embrace them all. Surtitles accompany every show in Dutch and/or French; there are shows in English (Forced Entertainment, Lone Twin Theatre, Theater im Bahnhof, to name a few) and many dance and performance events that require no particular language skills. There are performances on the streets, in a bus, in City 2 shopping centre, in theatres, and in abandoned industrial buildings transformed for cultural projects.

This year, the festival centre will be in KVS theatre on Lakensestraat, where audiences will find food, drink and congeniality until deep in the night.

7-29 May
Across Brussels
www.kfda.be