Van Laeken, or “Mr Monty”, is the man who founded this Antwerp arts centre back in the mid-1980s. It started out as a simple idea for a small concert venue in an unpopular part of town not far from the Royal Museum of Fine Arts. Now Monty has grown into a Flemish landmark known for its theatre and contemporary dance, and the neighbourhood has grown into Antwerpse Zuid, home to numerous galleries, cafes and the Museum of Contemporary Art (M HKA), which opened its doors soon after Monty.

One of the highlights of Monty’s 2009-2010 season is still to come: Wunderbaum, a Dutch theatre company that has been part of the Monty fold ever since it had its Belgian premiere at the venue almost a decade ago. For Van Laeken and Wunderbaum, it was love at first sight.

“They start with reality, what they experience. They start from scratch. It’s very exciting,” he says. “They would never take a book and adapt it straight to stage,” he adds, just in case such a conventional thought were to enter my head.

Wunderbaum’s next performance is Venlo, which was made in and named after the Dutch hometown of the infamous right-wing politician Geert Wilders. The production is about a community that has to cope with an identity crisis: the politicians try to talk to the people, but the locals think they can deal with the situation better on their own. Although sponsored by Monty, the performance – a veritable moveable feast – is taking place in a community centre.

Wunderbaum is incorporating local amateur actors into the performance in Antwerp, where members of the audience become citizens of the town, sitting at tables (filled with beer) for political pitches, going outside for the unveiling of a new public artwork.

Much of the programming at Monty has a strong political edge to it. Van Laeken, who is now artistic director and general manager, makes no bones about the fact that he has workingclass Communist roots. And is he still a Communist today? I ask. “Maybe,” he says, looking at me through his thick, blackrimmed glasses, chuckling. He has always been concerned about injustice in the world, he says, and his political and social commitment has been a constant theme in his work.

This season’s programme, for example, included the production Iraqi Ghosts, directed by Mokhallad Rasem, who used to work at the National Theatre of Baghdad and is now based in Antwerp. The production is a personal account by three Iraqi actors of the impact of the end of the Iraq war on their past, present and future.

Monty has also entered a threeyear collaboration with 3dePARTIJ (3rdPARTY), where peace activists from Israel and Palestine come to Antwerp to talk about their work. Next month, Bil’in, a movement of Palestinian citizen groups in favour of non-violent resistance, will speak at Monty.

“We don’t want to look to the past,” Van Laeken says of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “We want reconciliation, for the people to look to the future, to live in peaceful democracies.”

Monty’s artistic director is constantly trying to ensure that his programme of theatre and contemporary dance is relevant to today’s world. But this is no easy task, he admits, when performers need to be booked one or even two years in advance. “The artists have commitments left, right and centre, which makes it hard to react to events in the real world.”

Monty works with “a backbone of groups,” which includes home-grown tg Stan and De Roovers, as well as Wunderbaum. Also keen to attract new names, Van Laeken watches two or three performances a week, clocking up about 25,000 kilometres a year in the car as he travels around Flanders and the Netherlands scouting for new talent.

One up-and-coming name to look out for, according to Van Laeken, is the theatre group FC Bergman, whose actors all studied in Antwerp and so would often come to watch productions at Monty. Van Laeken describes the group as “the new Stan”.

When he watches new performances, he particularly looks for a relationship between the artists and the audience. “I don’t like it when the audience is treated like a stupid bunch of people who aren’t really there.” The performers must “emancipate” the audience, he says.

What seems great in one location doesn’t always work in another, though. “What you see that night is invented that night. It’s fluid. You cannot capture it,” Van Laeken says, recalling one company that he saw at the city’s Amperdans international dance festival. “When I first saw it, it was fantastic, perfect. I was so glad we could have it here. And then at Monty, it was a drag, it was horrible,” he grimaces, still unsure whether to blame his state of mind the first time he saw it, the venue or something else entirely.

Not that he worries too much about the reaction of his audience, which is largely made up of young people, including a lot of students. “We do not programme to please the audience,” he says on more than one occasion. He simply goes with his gut instinct and consults only a very close circle of collaborators.

Monty has three stages, starting with the “Foyer luxe”, a small stage in the bar area where new acts usually start out. “Hit the Stage” is upstairs in the pavilion, and the main auditorium is for the bigger performances.

Van Laeken no longer attends every performance at Monty, saying that he has been trying to slow down in the last few years and has started doing yoga to help in this effort. By his own admission, though, he finds it hard to switch off. He is simply someone who is constantly thinking about the next idea, be it theatrical, political or, ideally, a combination of the two.

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