The Kunstenfestivaldesarts takes place in May every year. For a threeweek period, it takes over around fifteen theatres and arts centres in Brussels, as well as various other venues in the city, which kindly open their doors to the festival.

The Kunstenfestivaldesarts comprises a selection of artistic work created
by Belgian and international artists: remarkable new works which translate a personal vision of the world today that the artists would like to share with audiences who are prepared to challenge and broaden their perspectives.

The Kunstenfestivaldesarts is a cosmopolitan city festival. We are part of a complex network of communities that makes territorial, linguistic and cultural divides increasingly porous. The city is the environment “par excellence” in which this cosmopolitan society can be seen.

The Kunstenfestivaldesarts takes place in Brussels, the only city in Belgium where the country’s two largest communities live together. Several Flemish- and French-speaking institutions are involved in the project. Fundamentally conceived as a bilingual undertaking, it contributes to encouraging dialogue between the communities living in the city.

The Kunstenfestivaldesarts also runs a series of encounters and workshops
alongside its programme that are aimed at putting its artistic project at the heart of the city and the people who live there.

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May 2012 and the 17th

Kunstenfestivaldesarts. Where do we stand these days with the arts, with the world and with Brussels? The contemporary artistic creation that has grown hugely in Europe over the past three decades is now facing difficult times. Accused of
being nothing more than an overly subsidised luxury or reduced to a customised machine to distract and please “everyone” (with as many people as possible being the absolute criteria), artistic creation – as with all levels of society – needs to take a long, hard look at itself. Without diminishing its autonomy or the singular nature of artistic expression that makes it so powerful, how can it play a full role
in society? How can it be outside and inside the world at the same time? How can it offer a combination of critical distance and engagement? Artistic creation today faces a gloomy and complex reality beyond all comprehension. At a time when nothing seems accepted and there is no other choice but to relinquish what we are used to, the disruptive, regenerative power of art and the relevance of its intuitions are needed more than ever.
We want the Kunstenfestivaldesarts to be an accommodating and welcoming
space. Over a three-week period, some thirty works – mostly new creations –
are discussed and shared with a diverse and enthusiastic audience. It is a celebration, a moment of coming together, revealing the possibility of potential
connections between different voices, aesthetics and realities. Artists based
in Brussels and from all over the world, embracing a variety of disciplines, make an offering about the world in which they live and which they animate, here and now. The festival supports their creations and offers a dynamic, lively and positive context where it is possible to share viewpoints, without creating categories or exploiting practices or ways of looking at things.
The Kunstenfestivaldesarts opens up a platform of reflection centred on a choice of works and individuals in whom it has great faith. What are they telling us? Where are we now and where should we be heading? On the bill this year is a subtle balance between established and unknown artists, between generations, between cultural and geographic landscapes. Leading figures in the arts world today such as William Forsythe, Claude Régy and Jérôme Bel rub shoulders with
up-and-coming or unknown creators. They offer us direct and profound works that testify to the frailty of the human condition. Many of the works presented this year will astonish with their directness and immediacy: the artists literally address the audience from the stage and within our everyday environment.
While the Kunstenfestivaldesarts attempts to encompass a wide view both
aesthetically and geographically, it has been important this year to focus our
choices on the European continent, also through the eyes of artists from elsewhere. Brett Bailey, Faustin Linyekula and Rimini Protokoll disconcertingly
reverse the situation between Europe and Africa. The profound divisions within the eastern half of the continent lie at the heart of the works by the Croatian Oliver
Frljic´, the Hungarians Kornél Mundruczó and Árpád Schilling, with the latter’s work embodying a fascinating reflection on the possible links between art and society. Today’s social and political Europe is echoed most pertinently in Guy Cassiers’ trilogy dedicated to Robert Musil. The artists re-evaluate the past and open up a path to the future. Drawing from Schiller, andcompany&Co. foments an uprising to come. Among many of the young choreographers (such as Eleanor Bauer and Pieter Ampe & co), the watchword seems to be the formation of possible communities, hypothetical assemblies and new forms of life. The younger generations, well represented this year, have been given a heavy legacy: people who have gone before are handing down a great social, cultural and natural imbalance which has to be fundamentally re-thought and re-invented. Worth noting again this year is the presence of children and their delicate malleability, which is at the heart of Boris Charmatz’s magnificent new work and Inne Goris’ creation.
We would like to thank all the people and institutions that make the Kunstenfestivaldesarts possible, and our many partners in the city whose
support and commitment make this festival a collective, multilingual and
international occasion.
We cordially invite you to join us in May so that we can experience and
make this festival together. Like all of us, art and artists are being confronted
with the need to forge links of solidarity, of which there is a profound shortage in our contemporary societies.
The Kunstenfestivaldesarts is an invitation to create and to perceive. We hope
that the artistic projects that have inspired and guided us this year will also constitute an invitation to change.

February 2012
Christophe Slagmuylder and the team
of the Kunstenfestivaldesarts

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Brett Bailey/Third World Bunfight
EXHIBIT B

Eleanor Bauer/GoodMove
TENTATIVE ASSEMBLY (the tent piece)

The Forsythe Company
SIDER

Oliver Frljić/Mladinsko Theatre
DAMNES BE tHE TRAITOR OF HIS HOMELAND!

Magdalena Arau
ARCHIVO EXPANDIDO

New Forms of Life
NATURAL MYSTERIES

Claude Régy
BRUME DE DIEU

Benoît Lachambre/Par B.L.eux
SNAKESKINS

Teatr Weimar
HAMLET II: EXIT GHOST

Jérôme Bel & Theater HORA
DISABLED THEATER

Miet Warlop/CAMPO
MYSTERY MAGNET

Panaibra Gabriel Canda
TIME AND SPACES: THE MARRABENTA SOLOS

Wael Shawky
CABARET CRUSADES: THE PATH TO CAIRO

andcompany&Co.
DER (KOMMENDE) AUFSTAND NACH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER

Inne Goris, Dominique Pauwels & Kurt d'Haeseleer/LOD
HOOG GRASS

Anna Rispoli & Edurne Rubio
RETROTERRA

Árpád Schilling/Krétakör
A PAPNO

Árpád Schilling
TALK

Denicolai & Provoost + Transquinquennal
LET'S RELIGION

Boris Charmatz/Musée de la danse
ENFANT

Rimini Protokoll
LAGOS BUSINESS ANGELS

Pieter De Buysser & Hans Op de Beeck
BOOK BURNING

Pieter Ampe, Guilherme Garrido, Hermann Heisig & Nuno Lucas/CAMPO
A COMING COMMUNITY

Marcelo Evelin/Demolition Inc. + Núcleo do Dirceu
MATADOURO

Brice Leroux & Seth Horvitz
FLOCKING-QUINTET/ Eight Studies for Automatic Piano

Rabih Mroué & Lina Saneh
33 TOURS ET QUELQUES SECONDES

Young Jean Lee's Theater Company
UNTITLED FEMINIST SHOW

Faustin Linyekula & Ballet de Lorraine
La CREATION DU MONDE

Kornél Mundruczó
DISGRACE

Toneelhuis/Guy Cassiers
DE MAN ZONDER EIGENSCHAPPEN: trilogie

Toneelhuis/Guy Cassiers
DE MISDAAD. De man zonder eigenschappen III

Chantal Mouffe
TALK