Audience interaction is key to Kaaitheater's Performatik festival.
At a first glimpse, the tightly packed programme seems to be a whirlwind tour of what's new and "where-it's-at" on the arts scene in Brussels (and beyond). But Performatik also provides a carefully directed followspot that pinpoints and sheds light on a new generation of artists bravely grappling with the challenge of defining today's ever more complex world.
Gallery as stage (and vice versa)
"I didn't want a theme for it," explains Katleen Van Langendonck, Performatik's programmer, of this second edition of the cross- Brussels festival. "The aim this year is to highlight the inter- relationships between visual arts and performing arts and their practitioners. A lot of artists on the programme are really on the border of the two worlds, and that's where an incredible amount of exciting work can be found. By involving other venues like Wiels, Beursschouwburg, Argos and so on, we hope to entice our theatre audience into the galleries and vice-versa." Indeed, the questions "Black box or white cube? Performance or exhibition?", the by-lines to the festival's title, aim to encourage us to leave the expectations we usually bring to theatres and galleries in the cloakroom.
During the 10-day festival, we're invited to experience an intriguing mix of installation, film, lectures, performance, science, sound and simulated space travel. The international line-up of artists shows the lesser-known and up-and-coming, rubbing shoulders with established artists such as France's Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and American Ari Benjamin Meyers.
The opening night is a prize example of the cross-fertilisation going on. French choreographer Boris Charmatz, who is currently busy transforming a choreographic centre in Rennes into the first Museum of Dance, will stage an open debate with Cosmin Costinas, the curator of BAK (Base for Contemporary Art) in Utrecht. They'll be discussing Charmatz's latest venture: expo zero, destined to become an exhibition without objects.
Thiis is followed by a new offering from Brussels-based Norwegian Mette Edvardsen, who will present a performance where movement and words make invisible objects come to life. The evening continues with a work-in-progress by recently discovered whiz-kid Ivo Dimchev, a Bulgarian artist also based in Brussels. Asked by the renowned Austrian visual artist Franz West to make two videos for his Adaptives - "portable sculptures" - Dimchev immediately asked West's permission to create a live performance with the same sculptures. The first results of the projects conclude the hybrid evening.
Personal as political (and vice versa)
"Personal narratives frequently offer keys to more universal issues," explains Van Langendonck. "Nowadays it seems too diffcult to make blanket generalisations about the state of the wider world. In the age of Facebook, personal opinions abound, and this is reflected in many of the performances."
That trend can be found in another zany piece by Dimchev: We.art.dog.com (say the title out loud to get the pun). The work talks about the grand themes of nature, culture, life and death but also features his newly purchased double bed as part of the set, and his own dog in a starring role.
In I am 1984, young Italio-Croatian duo Giuseppe Chico and Barbara Matijevic weave Matijevic's own anecdotes and trivia in and out of the political and historical events that took place in the year of the title. Evoking the films, video games, science fiction and sporting events of the day, Matijevic, alone on a stage with only a large whiteboard as backdrop, brings her exposé to life by sketching a giant timeline as she talks.
She has us recall with nostalgia the Sarajevo winter Olympics, Torvill and Dean winning the ice dancing championships and the first dubious Apple Mac ads showing businessmen jumping off cliffs. At the same time we learn of Matijevic's obsession with TV and her girlhood dreams of becoming a ballerina.
Documented versus immediate
Another highlight is the mixed bill on 1 March at Beursschouwburg. Russian video collective Chto Delat? shows a film about a conflict surrounding the construction of a 403-metre-high tower in St Petersburg; Dutch visual artist Hedwig Houben, who studied in Ghent, talks about the emotions and doubts associated with creating; Swiss fashion designer Christoph Hefti stages a pop concert; and British- born performance artist Zoe Laughlin devises a show for "non-Newtonian fluids and radioactive fruit bowls during which the inanimate is shown to be animate".
The rules of performance and visual art being bent and intertwined can be found in the series of installations at La Rafinerie by one of Kaaitheater's artists-in-residence, Kris Verdonck. The 10 installations of K: A Society are all in one location, but, unlike in a conventional gallery, each lasts a predetermined amount of time. Films of king-like creatures singing Wagnerian arias, a businessman lying in water clutching his briefcase or spectacular indoor fireworks displays are to be viewed like mini performances.
"Visual arts audiences tend to regard performance as a side dish. If you're 20 minutes late or miss it entirely but arrive for the drink, it's not a problem," says Van Langendonck. "In the visual arts world, everything is documented and can therefore be revisited. But in the performance world, it's different - the immediacy and ephemeral nature of the work are part of the experience. If you miss the opening night of a performance, for instance, you've missed an important event."
So, no excuses. Make sure you also catch the exhibition in Wiels, set up in collaboration with Performatik, that lasts throughout the festival and continues until May. It's a compendium of a whole generation of artists that use live action, interaction and performance as their main media. Seen together, the 11 artists of The Other Tradition seem really to be heralding a new genre of contemporary art.
And don't forget during Performatik that we audience members, too, will be playing an important part in the making and changing of art history.
Pictured: Kris Verdonck’s installation K, A Society (top) operates like 10 intimate performances; relive the year 1984 through Croatian Barbara Matijevic’s dry erase markers; Polish artist Cezary Bodzianowski is part of Wiels’ The Other Tradition
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