There will be official state dinners, parades and debates over the past and current situation in the DRC, but the artists are having their say now. While exhibitions on remnants of colonisation today are ongoing at the FotoMuseum in Antwerp, KVS theatre in Brussels has just launched its two-and-a-half month Congo Festival.

In fact, KVS has been working with artists in the DRC for quite awhile now. Jan Goossens, the theatre’s artistic director, went to Kinshasa for the first time exactly five years ago “with a blank page,” he says. “I had a few names of people I wanted to meet. I very quickly came to the conclusion that there was an enormous amount of talent there. There are so many young artists who, despite the misery they experience on a daily basis, are making art.”

But KVS began working with the Congo in mind even before that, with the production of Brussels playwright Raven Ruëll’s Het leven en de werken van Leopold II (The Life and Work of Leopold II), a 1970 play by Hugo Claus, and a series of works by Congolese artists based in Brussels.

After Goossens’ visit, KVS set up workshops and brought together Brussels-based and Kinshasa-based dancers and theatremakers. Brussels productions travelled to the DRC, including Leopold II and Spiegel (Mirror) by Ultima Vez dance troupe. “They are immensely isolated, and for young artists to see what artists in different parts of the world are doing is essential,” says Goossens.

And now, dozens of Congolese artists are coming to Brussels for KVS’ Congo Festival – some of whom KVS has been collaborating with for five years. “Kinshasa has been the throbbing artistic heart of sub-Saharan Africa, and it still is today,” says Goossens. “Especially in dance and visual arts.”

Which is why one of the most exciting performances on the programme is Mist, a collaboration between Belgian dancer and choreographer Thomas Steyaert, formerly of Ultima Vez, and four dancers from Kinshasa. They performed the piece already in the DRC’s first-ever dance platform and now premiere it in Brussels. It is a performance that moves between despair and hope and ultimately conveys a search for beauty in a moment or a day, or a life.

Also watch out for A l’attente du Livre d’Or (In Anticipation of the Book of Gold), a look into the fascinating Congolese legend of the Golden Book, said to contain the secret for the preservation of Congo after independence. A local dramaturge and actor worked together with Flemish director Johan Dehollander and four actors from Kinshasa to produce the play.

Also on the programme of dance, theatre, visual arts and readings is the multi-media More More More…Future, in which Congolese choreographer Faustin Linyekula uses the popular dance form ndombolo to encourage citizens to consider a future for the DRC. With dancers, live musicians and song, they bring a furious, colourful energy to the stage. The Dialogue Series is an equally intriguing Linyekula piece about the artist returning to the city of his youth, assisted by young Congolese countertenor Serge Kakudji and music from Mozart’s Requiem.

The free exhibition at KVS throughout the festival features photography, video art and political cartoonists from the DRC. For Goossens, the Congo journey has told him as much about the Belgian people as the Congolese. “Quite a few Belgians looked at me not understanding what the point was of collaborating with the Congo, but also with outright contempt,” he admits. “Why invest in culture in a place where there is only war, disease and famine? That is a patronising point of view. We are not telling people in the Congo that they need to invest in theatre or make art. They have been doing that for decades. Denying them that possibility and not helping them to strengthen what they themselves are doing – that would very much be a missed opportunity.”

Until 15 June
KVS Box and Bol, Brussels
Performances with dialogue are in French with Dutch surtitles
www.kvs.be