Cultural ideas for Belgium in December

In case you want a cultural escape from the Christmas shopping, I thought I’d share a few ideas of exhibitions, music theatre and dance happening in Belgium at the moment and about which I’ve recently written articles.

Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker has put together this year’s December Dance festival in Bruges. There’s at least one contemporary dance performance showing each day, and the programme includes choreography by William Forsythe, Trisha Brown and Jérôme Bel. (December Dance - Bruges - Until Dec. 13).

Interview with De Keersmaeker on the Bruges festival: http://www.flanderstoday.eu/content/twelve-days-dance

The photography exhibition Controverses is, as its name suggests, all about controversial images. The headline-grabbing one is that of a naked, 10 year-old Brooke Shields – yes, the one that was removed from the Tate Modern in London after a visit by the Metropolitan police’s obscenity squad. Most of the photos on display caused an outcry of one sort or another, a few changed history. (Controverses – Botanique, Brussels – Extended until Jan. 3).

More about Brooke Shields, the Kissing Nun and other photos: http://www.flanderstoday.eu/content/scandals-and-other-policymakers

The latest creation by the Antwerp-based company Muziektheater Transparant is A New Requiem. Taking Mozart’s Requiem as its inspiration, the work includes a contemporary literary, musical and artistic response to the old music. The work is a classic example of the company’s music theatre, which as its name suggests combines words and music. Tip: make sure your Dutch is up to scratch or else you might find it difficult to follow the spoken text, though you can still enjoy the song and music. (A New Requiem – Across Belgium and the Netherlands - Until April 5, 2010).

Interview with Muziektheater Transparant director Guy Coolen: http://www.flanderstoday.eu/content/song-mad-director

I have to admit that I hadn’t heard of the Hungarian artist Lajos Vajda before I researched this article, but it turns out I’m not the only one as the Antwerp exhibition is the first-ever retrospective of his work in western Europe. Most of his works – paintings, drawings, collages, photomontages - are from the 1930s and influences of Paul Klee, Marc Chagall and Max Ernst can all be found. (In the Footsteps of Bartok: Lajos Vajda and Hungarian Surrealism - KMSKA, Antwerp - until January 17.)

A taster of what the exhibition has to offer: http://www.flanderstoday.eu/content/ordering-chaos

(Copyright for pictures, from top to bottom: ©Herman Sorgeloos; ©Oliviero-Toscani; Drawn by Roger Raveel; ©Panther and Lily, 1930-33, PMMI Ferenczy Museum, Szentendre)

Happy 1st Birthday, Slice of Life!

“Slice of Life” has been up and running for a year. It was my first (and, so far, only) blog and so I had no idea how long it would last and whether anyone other than me (and possibly a few encouraging friends) would read it.

A year on and I can say that far more people have visited it than I thought would be the case. While just over 7,000 hits in a year (and no, this does not include my clicks on the site!) may not rank it among the world’s most popular blogs, I consider those 600+ hits a month to be a respectable number.

What I find even more interesting though is the geographical spread of the people visiting my blog. One of the tools of the site’s hit counter is a map showing me which parts of the world the visitors live in. I’m always amazed to see a little marker on say the Democratic Republic of Congo, a South Pacific island, the Philippines, Bangladesh or Iran. As I don’t know anyone in any of those places, the site’s reach is definitely beyond my immediate circle of friends and colleagues!

A year ago I wrote: “The aim of my blog is to attract readers, in my current home city of Brussels and abroad, with an interest in culture in the broadest sense of the word.” Well, that aim certainly seems to have been achieved.

A year on and I’m also doing a lot more arts writing professionally. I continue to get a complete kick out of it and am sometimes surprised that I’m paid to do something I love so much.

Still, the (unpaid!) blog will certainly continue as it’s fun to have another outlet to write about culture and, when I’m lucky, hear about others’ reactions, experiences and ideas.

Keep reading, enjoying and exploring!

Karabits sets Brussels stage alive with Shostakovich symphony

Kirill Karabits seemed to put every last drop of energy into conducting the final chords of Shostakovich’s sixth symphony, ending with a 180-degree turn to face the audience and revealing a smile that you sensed had been on his face throughout the work.

For me, the symphony was the highlight of last Friday’s concert (October 23), performed by the Orchestre National de Lille at the Bozar concert hall in Brussels. From the rich intensity of the lower strings in the opening largo through to the timpani acrobatics at the close, I was totally drawn in.

One of the least performed of Shostakovich’s 15 symphonies, the sixth is unusually made up of just three movements. The first movement lasts more than half the total duration and is followed by an allegro and a presto, which musicologist David Fanning has described as “a spectral scherzo” and “a manic gallop.”

Karabits, who studied conducting in his native Kiev and is now in his early 30s, was a guest conductor with the Orchestre National de Lille. His main position is as principal conductor of England’s Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, where he has just started a four-year tenure. Given the number of engagements he seems to have lined up elsewhere as guest conductor, I’m optimistic that I’ll get another chance to see him conduct.

The rest of Friday’s concert was a contemporary piece, entitled Wailing, by Chinese composer Lu Wang, who was in Brussels to hear the performance, and Rachmaninov’s third piano concerto. The Chinese piece did little for me, and the concerto had brilliant moments – in fact the pianist Nikolai Demidenko was cheered back on stage for two encores - but the orchestra didn’t seem as at ease with this work as with the symphony. Luckily for me, my favourite part came last and so I left the concert hall with that uplifting feeling that comes when you have been transported away by music.

Mozaik Artistik: Brightening up Brussels

Mosaic paving stones have sprung up all over Schaerbeek, the 1030 postcode area of Brussels where I live. In front of almost 100 homes in the area, one paving stone has been replaced by a colourful square of ceramic or glass pieces indicating that the house is part of “Art 1030 – Mozaik Artistik”.

The idea behind this event is that for two consecutive weekends these buildings, be they private homes, workshops or small museums, open their doors and allow the general public a glimpse of the lives and works of local painters, sculptors and other artists. Some of the spaces are workshops crammed with pots of paint and wooden frames, others are living rooms temporarily transformed into mini galleries.

Last weekend I discovered the museum of spontaneous art, the workshop of the late Geo de Vlamynck, known in Belgium for a large mosaic he designed for the Neptunium swimming pool, and a private home where several artists were displaying their wares, which included photography, jewellery and stone sculptures. This weekend I might visit the house on my street where I first saw one of the mosaic street tiles and wondered why it was there.

A full list of the places taking part in “Art 1030 – Mozaik Artistik” is in the catalogue, available online (click here) or as a hard copy at one of the centres organising the event, such as the Maison des Arts/Huis der Kunsten (Chaussée de Haecht 147 Haachtsesteenweg). One of the participating artists is Ingrid Schreyers, who created the mosaic tiles and who takes personalised orders if you fancy brightening up the street in front of your own home.

Emerging from Words and Music

The final essay is almost complete, the finishing line in sight. For the last eight months I have been studying ‘Words and Music’ at the Open University and a whole new world has opened up to me. I’ve discovered German lieder, had the opportunity to study the importance of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and explored how John Milton used the biblical story of Samson and Delilah for his dramatic poem Samson Agonistes, which in turn was adapted by George Frideric Handel for his oratorio Samson.

Having both a literary and musical background, for me the joy of this course was its interdisciplinary nature, the opportunity to analyse how text and music work together and how they enhance or detract from each other. My favourite components of the course were those dealing with classical music, but the module covered everything from South Asian art songs to Broadway musicals. There were even short sections on The Beatles, rap artists (I can now recognise a couple of Eminem songs!) and Sicilian storytellers.

The course allowed me to look in more depth at some areas that I was already familiar with and discover others that were completely new to me. I reacquainted myself with literary theory, explored new ideas in musical theory, brushed up on reading texts critically and learnt how to listen more closely to music using a score. In short, I was reminded what a great intellectual stimulus academic study is and what a joy it is to be learning more about a topic that you’re passionate about.

So as I do my final checks before sending off my last essay, on Virginia Woolf’s short story The String Quartet and Franz Schubert’s Death and the Maiden string quartet, my mind is already wondering what to study next. A Masters in Music is one possibility. Decision time is mid-December, so I still have a few more weeks to think it over.

In the meantime, I hope to find more time to write about my “cultural excursions,” which have recently included a performance of Shakespeare’s Macbeth by the UK-based Cheek by Jowl theatre company - a world premiere in the Belgian town of Namur no less! - and a concert of New Orleans music by the Fondy Riverside Bullet Band. Macbeth has inspired composers to write music on the play’s subject, and the New Orleans music inspired a text about war, loss and celebration that was combined with the music for their recent performance: the links between words and music seem to be everywhere!

Gilbert and George come to Brussels

Gilbert and George are probably the most recognised artists in Britain, the interviewer suggests, pointing out that there wouldn’t be many a London cabbie who didn’t know who they were. “Very sweet, isn’t it,” says George deadpan, pausing for dramatic effect and then adding “For one reason or another”.

The gags and the lines just keep coming. Sometimes it’s one half of the duo doing the talking, sometimes they do a quick back and forth and sometimes they speak simultaneously and then burst out laughing. Listening to Gilbert and George talk about their art and their life is an absolute delight.

Smartly dressed in light brown suits and tan leather shoes (they are keen to point out that they don’t always dress the same, just similarly), the pair, now in their 60s, give an impression of formality and correctness. So when George embarks on a tale or two in his plummy English accent, and then rounds it off with coarse language or innuendo, the comic effect is brilliant.

The two work seamlessly together, the one almost merging into the other as they finish off each other’s sentences and constantly talk in the first person plural. On their work: “We don’t see it as work, we can say what we want, it’s an enormous freedom and privilege”. On their daily walks around London: “We walk all the time, you are feeling it non-stop, what is going on. We always go towards ideas that interest us.” On their evening ritual of eating the same dish at the same Turkish restaurant: “We don’t waste our brains reading menus”.

George, born in England, and Gilbert, born in Italy, met in 1967 at St. Martin’s School of Art where they were both studying sculpture. “We just drifted together,” George says. “We were alone”, too “freakish” to become art teachers, adds Gilbert. And so from their home in the East End of London, the duo began creating their “art for all”. And more than 40 years later, they still live in the East End and they are still creating.

A selection of their latest work, the Jack Freak Pictures, opens today (and runs until Oct. 31) at the Baronian Francey gallery in Brussels, one of seven European galleries showing different selections of the series. The entire collection, made up of 153 new artworks and created with the help of just one assistant (“he’s only allowed to scan!” Gilbert emphasises), will be exhibited at the Bozar in Brussels in the autumn of 2010.

Gilbert and George were interviewed by Michael Bracewell at a public event at the Bozar on Sept. 8 2009.

Knokke Biennale and Contemporary Art

I wrote in a recent article “If contemporary art is your scene, then the Knokke Biennale should be in your diary.” To be honest though, I’m not really sure that it’s my scene. Of course it depends on how you define contemporary art, but when I walked into Hoet Bekaert’s summer gallery in Knokke - grandly/ironically called the Knokke Biennale – my immediate reaction was “is this it?”

A replica of a matchbox, a donkey’s head that had been used as a stage prop, a photograph resting on two drums of cat food, pieces of carbon copy paper with phrases such as “This looks like something I’ve seen before” mounted on light boxes...you get the picture.

Once the ideas behind the works had been explained, I started to appreciate them more. There is definitely a part of me that seeks to understand and analyse, wanting context and background. And I like to think that I have a relatively open mind. But had I seen these works anywhere but in a gallery, would I really have given them a second glance?

As I was shown round the small garage-like space, I still had a lingering doubt that I was perhaps being taken in by one big joke. After all, the whole Knokke Biennale idea had been done tongue-in-cheek (and brilliantly so), so maybe this was just one more element.

But no, these were works by well-known names on the contemporary art circuit: the donkey’s head was by Thai artist Surasi Kusolwong, who has exhibited at London's Tate Modern; and the work using cat food drums was by Amanda Ross-Ho, with whom the Hoet Bekaert gallery will be going to London’s Frieze Art Fair this year.

Gallery co-founder Jan Hoet Junior was keen to dispel the assumption of many that contemporary art is something that anyone can do. For me though that wasn’t the source of my doubts. It was rather the fact that when I viewed the works, I didn’t feel anything (other than perhaps bewilderment). I want colours or shapes or textures to prompt some instinctive response, to have aesthetic appeal - is that too old-fashioned a thought? or am I just missing the point?

The Return of Ulysses: ballet, the absurd and dancing in flippers

The Royal Ballet of Flanders has gone on its summer holidays. But before they disappeared I caught the company’s final performance of the 2008-2009 season in Bruges, Belgium, and spoke to the ballet company’s artistic director Kathryn Bennetts.

The Return of Ulysses was the dance performance with which the Antwerp-based ballet company chose to round off their season and the one that it’s taking to the Edinburgh International Festival this August.

The choreography is a combination of classical and contemporary dance; the music switches between Henry Purcell and songs from the 1950s and 1960s such as those of Doris Day; and the costumes are all black for the protagonist Penelope and her many suitors, and a gold skirt suit for the goddess Athena and flippers, goggles and a tutu for Poseidon. It’s a performance of contrasts, one of “light and shade,” as Bennetts put it.

The story of the return of Ulysses is related from his wife Penelope’s perspective. It has been 20 years since Ulysses left to fight in the Trojan wars and in those intervening years of seemingly endless waiting Penelope has fought off many suitors – to various degrees of success, in the eyes of the choreographer Christian Spuck, it would seem. Penelope is subjected to a fair amount of aggressive male behaviour on stage but the suitors’ competitiveness and jealousy of each other means that Penelope is ultimately the one with her pride left intact.

Bennetts sums up the narrative as “an absurd story”, pointing to the absurdity of Penelope waiting for her husband for so many years and then not even recognising him once he finally does return home. The choreographer wants “to express the absurdity of things: the absurdity of the suitors' struggle for power, the absurdity of the gods who do not heed the laments of humans, the absurdity of Penelope endlessly waiting and the sardonic irony of her failing to recognize Ulysses,” as the Royal Ballet of Flanders says on its website. Unsurprisingly perhaps comparisons have been drawn with Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’.

Bennetts dedicated the performance in Bruges to Pina Bausch, the German choreographer who had died just a few days earlier.

To read more about this performance and another Flemish company going to the Edinburgh Festival, click here.

Which Famous Person Takes Your Fancy? Get a Plaster Cast Made in Brussels!

Tucked away in the corner of a courtyard in the Cinquantenaire park in Brussels is a workshop where a handful of volunteers are chiselling, smoothing and perfecting all sorts of plaster casts. Whether you want a bust of Beethoven, the head of Voltaire or your very own copy of Michelangelo’s David, you can put in an order.

The plaster-casting workshop, which belongs to the Royal Museums of Art and History, was set up during the 19th century and holds around 4,000 moulds of sculptures dating from prehistoric times to the 18th century. They were originally made during a time when it wasn’t as easy and affordable to travel as it is today, and so craftsmen went to see the famous artworks of other countries, made moulds based on the originals and then produced plaster casts that could be viewed by a wider public in Brussels.

The moulds are now piled on top of each other on shelves from floor to ceiling row after row. Some of the moulds are broken, as are many of the original plaster casts. One of the volunteers explained to me that the damage happened in the 1930s when the moulds and casts were moved by prisoners from the main exhibition space to their current location.

Admittedly the hours aren’t too convenient for a visit (9.30am-noon and 1.30pm to 4pm Tuesday-Friday), but if you’re in the area and have a spare half-hour or so, it’s definitely worth popping in. The entrance is filled with replica statues and busts, which lead through to the storage rooms and the actual workshop. There’s also a small room with catalogues of their moulds in case you’re tempted to place an order.

Bruocsella Orchestra Takes on Symphonic Works with a Twist

Liszt’s “symphonic poem” Les Préludes and Debussy’s “symphonic sketches” La Mer will be the two orchestral highlights of the Bruocsella Symphony Orchestra’s summer concert in Brussels this weekend (June 21).

If the prospect of an orchestra alone isn’t enough of a draw, then the two solo works on the programme should be. Alain Baudhuin is playing Weber’s clarinet concerto no. 1 and cellist Benjamin Glorieux is performing Respighi's Adagio con variazioni – they both studied at the music conservatory in Brussels and really are worth coming to hear.

You can read more about the concert in this article in Flanders Today and on the orchestra’s web site. Maybe see you on Sunday!

(Photo credit: Alexandre Istratov)

Judging the Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition

It goes without saying that the finalists in the Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition had their work cut out, having to perform a concert comprising a sonata, a newly composed, unpublished work that they had just one week to study and then a concerto. And all that after the various, rigorous requirements of the semi-final, the first round and the qualifying rounds. 

But what about the jury’s task? I’m not sure that was much easier to be honest. For the finals, they listened to and judged 12 performances spread out over six consecutive evenings. How on earth the jury manages to first select the finalists and then rank them is beyond me, especially when so much about music and its interpretation is subjective. One finalist produces a seductive sonata, the next a show-stopping concerto and the only work that is truly comparable is the unpublished work (this year Agens by Cho Eun-Hwa).

Yet they did choose a winner: Ray Chen, the Taiwanese-born Australian who at 20 was this year’s youngest finalist and certainly the finalist with the cheekiest smile! That smile seemed to reflect how at ease he was, not only with his own solo part, but also with the orchestra accompanying him and performing in front of a packed Bozar hall.

Chen’s was unfortunately not one of the finals I was able to watch live, but I did listen to it via the competition’s video on demand service, where all the finals and semi-finals are available until September 15. The video may not replicate the atmosphere in the hall that evening, but it is wonderful to be able to hear and watch him. It’s a lesson in how to play in a relaxed manner, as he even manages to flash a smile the conductor’s way in the middle of his cadenza in the Tchaikovsky concerto!

In fact he seemed to enjoy the entire performance, which the audience greeted with a standing ovation. And his reward was 1st prize, 20,000 euros, numerous concerts, a CD recording and the loan of a Stradivarius violin for three years, in short what may turn out to be the key to launching a solo career. Second prize went to Belgium’s Lorenzo Gatto (whose final I was lucky enough to see live) and third place to Moldavia’s Ilian Garnet. 

Young Jean Lee Tackles Black Identity

Playwright and director Young Jean Lee said of audiences’ reactions to her latest play “The Shipment”:  “Whether they loved it or hated it, they were still thinking about it long after the show was over. I feel really happy about that response.” 

I saw the play earlier this week during its run at the Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels and it’s true, I can’t stop thinking about it. The play deals with “black American identity politics” and is performed by an all-black cast. The audience is confronted with stereotypes and clichés of black identity, which are sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes funny, always thought-provoking.

“When starting a play, I ask myself, ‘What's the last play in the world I would ever want to write?’ Then I force myself to write it. I do this because I've found that the best way to make theater that unsettles and challenges my audience is to do things that make me uncomfortable”, Lee says on her website.

“The Shipment” is divided into two parts, the first being a bombardment of stereotypical black images. A young, black man tells his grandmother of his dream to be a rap star; he is then enticed into the world of drug dealing by a friend; he ends up in jail where he meets a record manager who turns him into a star. There’s music, there’s dance, there are hip-hop and rap rhythms, there’s street lingo and strong language. It’s fast-paced and funny.

About half-way through the 90-minute play, the tempo suddenly drops as the house lights go up and three of the actors take centre stage to sing a powerful a capella song (the lyrics are from Dark Center of the Universe by Modest Mouse). I can still hear the rhythms, words and harmonies. As Lee said in an interview with the festival organisers, “the audience is laughing at these stereotypes, and suddenly they see the performers as people, not stereotypes, and the performers are looking at them”. It acts as a transition to the starkly contrasting, naturalistic setting of the second part of the show.

The play is not about making white people feel bad about being white, but it is about raising questions about black identity and subverting stereotypes. It makes us, the audience, question our own attitudes towards and preconceived ideas of race, ask why we associate certain images with black people and others with white people, and wonder whether we all have some ingrained racism in us.

The show, which has so far been performed in New York and Brussels, is doing a worldwide tour. Click here to see where the play will be showing.

(Photo credit: © Academie Anderlecht - Tracy Richards)

Queen Elisabeth violin competition – waiting for the finals

I might be wrong, but I don’t think I heard this year’s winner of the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Brussels last night.

There's no denying there was drama, as one of the violinists broke a string as she was tuning up in between pieces, and there was also charm, as another semi-finalist added a cheeky smile to win over at least the audience (who knows if that kind of thing has an effect on the jury). There were also painful facial expressions and hunched shoulders at times, neither of which looked conducive to making a beautiful musical sound.

Don’t misunderstand me, these young musicians have an enviable ability. But I’m not convinced I heard the violinist who will join the ranks of David Oistrakh and Vadim Repin, previous winners of the competition. After all, this is one of the world’s top violin competitions, aimed at musicians aged between 17 and 27 who have completed their training and are ready to start an international career. Expectations are high.

If I had to pick one of the four violinists performing yesterday to go through to the final, I’d go for Moldavia’s Ilian Garnet. His performance was the only one, for me at least, that added an extra bit of magic and went beyond technical perfection.

Only on Saturday night though will we know for sure which of the 24 semi-finalists will stay in the competition. And then the 12 lucky finalists will be whisked off to the Queen Elisabeth College of Music where they will live a rather isolated week until their final performance.

Bring on the finals!

Enjoy Poverty: Renzo Martens

The lasting image in Renzo Martens’ documentary-style film, set in the Congo, is a neon sign saying “ENJOY please POVERTY” that he sets up in a remote Congolese village. As the Dutch artist starts the portable generator and the letters light up, the children look on in delight, and the parents are happy that a little joy has been brought into their children’s lives. It is quite clearly the event of their year, if not their lifetime.

But the message it carries is a stark one: be resigned to your life of poverty and don’t believe in the hope offered by western charity workers, you have been poor for decades and in reality this probably won’t change, be satisfied with your lot, enjoy your poverty.

This uneasy pairing of, on the one hand, seeming to want to better the Congolese people’s lives and, on the other, concluding that there is no hope of a better life for them runs throughout the film. It makes uncomfortable viewing as you wonder what Martens’ true intentions are.

The film seems to mock the way the western world exploits the poverty in Africa: the white journalists and photographers seeking the worst atrocities so they can sell their ‘story’ to the western media, the United Nations peacekeepers keeping designated areas safe so that overseas companies can fly in and out to search for gold, the western palm oil and cocoa plantation owner whose local workers don’t earn enough to feed their children, and the NGOs who drive around in jeeps and plaster their logos on everything to increase visibility and help secure more funding.

Martens travels around the Congo describing this situation to the Congolese people, telling them how their poverty is a resource that the west exploits to make money, little of which is returned to those in need, and to make themselves feel good. But isn’t Martens complicit in this too?

At one point, Martens sets up a makeshift classroom where he puts basic calculations up on a board to illustrate to local men how photographing malnourished children and raped women and selling these photos to foreign media would bring them more money than taking pictures of weddings and celebrations. They set out to put the theory into practice.

You sit there squirming, as these men are encouraged to point their cameras into the faces of their own suffering people and get a ‘good’ picture that will sell well. Martens and the men go to a hospital to see if the (white) Médecins sans Frontières representative would allow them to take pictures and if he’d be interested in buying their photos. The answer is no, the reason first being that it would be inappropriate, and then, when Martens points out that western photographers are permitted to do so, the reason is because the locals’ work isn’t professional enough.

Martens tells the men bluntly that their plan won’t work, they won’t be able to sell their photos and that they should go back to selling happy, wedding pictures for a pittance. You feel like Martens has used them for his own personal experiment, and then abandoned them once he has made his point and obtained his documentary material. They had put their trust in him and are left disappointed, exploited even.

It’s a contradictory film, which initially made me question the point of my monthly contributions to Médecins sans Frontières and by the end had me questioning what Martens really hoped to achieve with his documentary.

The film is showing at the KVS in Brussels until May 10 as part of the Kunstenfestivaldesarts.

(Photo credit: © Renzo Martens)

Intoxicated by words and music

Baudelaire’s Fleurs du mal was a set text at university and appealingly so with its themes of drunkenness, intoxication, love, beauty, ennui and anguish. A decade or so later and the collection crossed my path again as I saw an amazing performance directed by Frédéric Dussenne at the Théâtre Marni in Brussels.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect as I entered the theatre for “Baudelaire: music and poetry”. As it turned out, I was treated to a spectacle that combined drama, theatre, dance and music. The words were almost entirely taken from the Fleurs du Mal collection (the one exception was a prose poem by Baudelaire that was set to music by Benoît Mernier) and either sung by the soprano Sophie Karthäuser or spoken by the actor Angelo Bison.

Bison’s delivery was particularly powerful. He turned what could have been a straight poetry recital into a truly theatrical performance. The stage had little on it: on the left was the pianist David Lively at his grand piano with the soprano in front of him, on the right the actor dressed in black with a single chair as a prop. When the poems spoke of beauty and love, Bison looked imploringly at the soprano, when the poems raised questions, he turned to the audience. At times he was calm, at others he stormed into the audience or off the stage in a fit of rage or anger or desperation. He was totally in command of the audience’s reactions, orchestrating whether we watched in silence, allowed ourselves a little chuckle when asked what we should get drunk on, or made our skins crawl as he spat out the words of Une charogne (carrion). I was captivated.

The rhythm and metre of the poetry were brilliantly accentuated by Bison and at times it was as if he was almost singing. It was a natural transition between his poems and those sung by Karthäuser such as Harmonie du soir (Evening’s harmony) or La mort des amants (The death of lovers), both set to music by Claude Debussy. As well as the piano, song and spoken word, dance was also woven into the performance with a male dancer representing for example ‘evening’ and ‘the devil’.

According to the director, Baudelaire was “a musician of spoken French”. Well, that certainly came across in last night’s performance. Wonderful stuff.

Digital Words and Images

I took a peek at the World Digital Library, which was launched today, and found all sorts of curiosities.

As I’m currently studying the opera Carmen as part of a university course, I was interested to find an 1872 manuscript, handwritten by Bizet, of the ‘Havanaise’ from his opera Carmen as well as a short film dating from 1898-1899 by the Lumière brothers of a traditional bullfight in Seville, Spain.

I also stumbled upon a more amusing item: a letter to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, signed by three girls identifying themselves as “Elvis Presley Lovers,” begging the president not to allow Elvis’s sideburns to be cut off after he was conscripted into the army in 1958!

The digital library is an initiative between the Library of Congress, Unesco and 32 partner institutions. It’s a web site containing digitised books, journals, manuscripts, maps, motion pictures, prints, photographs and sound recordings from libraries and archives around the world. It’s free to browse, easy to search (by country, date, topic, type of item or institution) and you can share discoveries with others by any number of social networking tools (some of which I’d heard of, some I hadn’t).

You don’t get the same kick out of seeing digital versions of these cultural materials as you do from seeing the original. However, maybe you otherwise wouldn’t get to see the original at all – the site has items from national libraries ranging from Iraq, Brazil and China to Russia, Israel and Serbia -- or maybe this site may prompt a visit to one of the libraries or institutes.

One discovery I made for example was a beautiful illuminated page in Javanese script from a chronicle of a Javanese court in Yogyakarta. Since my travels to Java and other Indonesian islands, I do have a soft spot for Indonesian culture. And this particular item is at an institute in Leiden (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies), which really isn’t that far at all from my current home town of Brussels.

Go and explore and see what you find at www.wdl.org!

A whole new world just waiting to be discovered

I’ve been converted. No, I haven’t had a religious epiphany, but more of a literary one. I have discovered the short story genre.

“Runaway”, a collection of short stories by Alice Munro, had been sitting untouched on my bookshelf for several months. I can’t recall exactly why I bought the book; it was just one of those chance purchases. The cover caught my attention, it had interesting comments by critics on the back and I liked what I read on the first page or so.

I came home, put it on my bookshelf in the pile of “books to read” and then forgot about it. Until last week that is. And now I can’t put it down. It has been a while since I’ve read a book where I am so absorbed by the characters and the writing that although you know you should really put the light out and go to sleep, you tell yourself that another few pages won’t do any harm and you simply keep on reading.

I just hadn’t expected this from short stories because, by their very nature, you’re not with the characters for many pages. This particular collection differs perhaps in that one character returns in three stories, albeit at completely different stages of her life i.e. in one she’s a young woman, another a mother and another a grandparent. But other stories are totally distinct.

What’s most compelling is the way the episodes are distilled down to their very essence, not a word is wasted. I feel like I am simultaneously being told a story, in the most straightforward sense, and gaining an insight into human behaviour and the human condition. And all this in so few words. The experience is intense and a joy.

Surely in this age where everyone claims to have so little free time, this is the era when the short story should come into its own. I haven’t seen any sales figures for short stories to know what the trend is and how it fares against the novel or poetry, but anecdotal evidence tells me that it is an unpopular genre and a hard sell. It shouldn’t be, it really shouldn’t. Or is Alice Munro one of the few brilliant short story writers out there?

Have you discovered a great short-story writer? If so, please share! I want to read more.

The freedom to write

Every now and again I’m reminded of how lucky I am to be able to write what I want, more or less, about whatever interests me. That unfortunately isn’t the case for everyone across the globe.

I recently heard four writers speak in Brussels about their personal experiences in their native countries of Syria, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and Serbia and why they have sought refuge in other nations.

Syrian poet Faraj Bayrakdar explained how we was sentenced to 15 years in prison for, as he put it, being against the Ba’ath principles of Freedom, Unity and Socialism. The irony of being put in prison for opposing freedom was not lost on him. As he said though, “the freedom within us is larger than the prison that holds us”.

After being released in 2000, he travelled regularly to Europe and always returned trouble-free to his homeland. The situation changed, however, while he was in Sweden. He heard how many writers and journalists had been arrested for signing the so-called Damascus Declaration, which called for Lebanon and Syria to set up embassies in each other’s countries. His friends back home warned him not to return as he would either be arrested or “an incident” would be arranged. “For the first in my life I felt that my life was in danger”, he said.

He still lives in Stockholm, writing poetry and speaking out in favour of freedom: the freedom of expression and the freedom to be silent.

Zimbabwe’s Chenjerai Hove read out two of his poems, written in English, about the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa, a writer and activist who was executed by the Nigerian government in 1995. Hove made the point that freedom after expression is just as crucial as being allowed to express oneself. As the authorities told him, there’s no problem in having the books published. The difficulties come afterwards, Hove said, giving as one example that the state might buy all his books and then throw them into a lake.

Afghanistan’s Kamran Mir Hazar said he had been detained several times in what he termed an “Afghan guantanamo” for writing articles about war crimes and corruption by high-ranking officials on his website kabulpress.org.

Dejan Anastasijevic, the first Serbian journalist to testify against Slobodan Milosevic at the Tribunal in The Hague, also spoke about Afghanistan. During the war in Afghanistan, the Arabic-language news network Al-Jazeera was blown up in the name of the “war on terror”, and there was no protest from journalists, Anastasijevic said. He warned of how the independence of journalists is being eroded and how the current financial crisis “will be used by enemies of the freedom of expression as a cover”, how the publications that survive will no longer be independent but be run by governments or banks.

“The fight for freedom is never over”, Anastasijevic said.

The writers were speaking at events organised by the Brussels international literature house Passa Porta, together with Shahrazad - Stories for Life, a place where writers persecuted and silenced in their own homelands can tell their stories, and PEN, a worldwide authors' association that stands up for free speech and opposes any form of censorship.

Lisbon's colours by day and night

As we sat on the tram’s wooden benches, looking out at the colourful tiled façades lit up in the March sunshine, a young woman dressed in a cotton print dress and straw hat burst into poem. The carriage fell silent to listen. I could only recognise the odd word, but was fascinated by the sounds and rhythm of the Portuguese language.

The short descent down the steep, narrow street from Lisbon’s Barrio Alto to Praça dos Restauradores allowed time for just three poems to be recited by her and her friends, who sat on the window ledges at each end of the carriage. It was a lovely gesture to mark World Poetry Day (March 21).


This linguistic surprise was one of several highlights during my long weekend in the Portuguese capital. Another was the country’s fado music, which literally means “fate”. It took a while for us to find a fado club we were happy with, finally plumping for a small, basement one in the Alfama district. Most of the audience had clearly made an entire evening of it, dining, drinking and listening. We went in for a nightcap and an hour or so of the beautiful, doleful music.

Two old men played guitars – one a simple, rhythmic line on a Spanish guitar, the other a more intricate part on a 12-string guitarra. To this accompaniment, a voice sang its words of love, sorrow and yearning. A set of about 15 minutes by one singer was followed by a break of a similar length to allow time for chatter and drinks, and then another singer would take to the floor. The three performers stood in the middle of the room, with the low, vaulted brick ceiling above and the audience seated at tables all around.

The minor key, the melancholic voice, the traditional black dress and shawl of the female singer, together they created a sombre, dark mood, far removed from the bright colours of the daytime and yet just as much a part of the Portuguese culture.

Expand those literary horizons!

A note for your literary diary: 26-29 March, Passa Porta Festival, Brussels.

Over the four days, the literary side of Brussels will come to life with debates, discussions and tours by writers from across the globe. Much of the programme is in French and Dutch, but there’s also plenty to choose from in other languages including English. Turkey’s Elif Shafak, Hungary’s Péter Nádas and the UK’s Alan Hollinghurst will be among the authors taking part.

I caught up with Passa Porta’s director, Sigrid Bousset, to learn more about this year’s festival and where the original idea for such a festival came from. You can read my article, published today in Flanders Today, by clicking here.

Museums open until 1am - if you can get in

More than 10,000 people spent last Saturday night visiting a Brussels museum as part of “Museum Night Fever”. The sheer popularity, however, meant that my experience was more traipsing around town from one queue to another rather than actual museum visiting.

Still, I did make it into the Cinquantenaire museum (part of the Royal Museums of Art and History) and discovered its Roman mosaic collection from Apamea in Syria. That in itself made the evening worthwhile. The centrepiece of this wing is a beautiful 5th century floor mosaic depicting hunting scenes. Along one side of the room is an impressive reconstruction of part of Apamea’s colonnaded street, which ran almost 2 kilometres on a north-south axis through the city. The museum’s collection also included mosaics dated from the year 392 from Apamea’s synagogue.

If you were looking for dance classes rather than Roman mosaics, then the place to be was the quirky “Continental Superstar” space, which I visited earlier in the year (click here to read the post). The disco lights were spinning and the bar was open. It still didn’t quite work for me though.

In total, 14 museums opened their doors on Saturday between 7pm and 1am. The Museum of Musical Instruments’ party sounded good and was certainly popular but the organisers told us that we probably wouldn’t get to the front of the queue before it finished.

Next tip: the Robert Capa photography exhibition at the Jewish Museum. Unfortunately the museum decided there were too many visitors that evening and so they were closing the doors early. Luckily though it’s just around the corner from the Sablon area and so we rounded off the evening with a nightcap in a local bar. Not quite the museum extravaganza I had anticipated but it had its highlights all the same.

German culture strikes chords and discord

My February seems to have been dominated by German culture, and I didn’t even make it to Carnival! Instead I heard the Berlin-based Artemis quartet, went to a literary evening whose focus was the author W.G. Sebald (1944-2001) and enjoyed my first live performance of the Berliner Philharmoniker. Each of the evenings included a discovery, sometimes to my liking and sometimes not, and something familiar.

The Sebald event was part of an exchange between Passa Porta, the international house of literature in Brussels, and the Literaturhaus Stuttgart. Having lived near Stuttgart for a year, a period when I started to read contemporary German-language authors, nostalgia may well have been one reason for me deciding to go along.

Much of the evening was devoted to a discussion between a journalist who had interviewed Sebald, a German literature professor from the Free University of Brussels and a Flemish writer. The three guests interrupted their discussion by playing parts of interviews recorded with Sebald and reading extracts from some of his books.

I was interested by the ideas that seemed to motivate Sebald’s writing: knowing where he came from; his history; memory; remembering the past; exploring what the truth is with regards to the past. And yet, despite this, the evening didn’t make me want to go and read Sebald. I was fascinated by the ideas and the literary criticism, but what little I heard of the actual works simply didn’t resonate enough with me.

My experience of listening to the Artemis quartet was similar in one respect. Their latest Brussels concert included Quartet no. 1 by Jörg Widmann, a contemporary German composer who is supported by the Artemis quartet.

The cellist preceded the performance with a word or two about the work, which was extremely helpful. For example, he talked of how the beginning of the piece, which has the instruments making hesitant starts and scratching sounds on the strings, was inspired by the difficulty of filling a blank page, the difficulty of starting to compose a piece. Had it not been explained, I could imagine having exchanged a few quizzical looks. The piece had some beautiful sounds and made me listen attentively to try and make sense of it, but I certainly wasn’t immediately converted into a Widmann fan. It was the Artemis’s performance of two Schubert quartets (no.s 9 and 15) that captivated me.

The novelty in the Berliner Philharmoniker’s concert was Messiaen’s Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum, which I’d only ever heard on a CD and to be honest had never managed to listen to it all the way through without getting distracted. In this case, I was in for a pleasant surprise as the live performance was totally different. The largest metal gong, taller than the musician striking it, reverberated impressively around the hall, and in fact needed a second percussionist to help stop its sound, such was its power. All the percussion was exciting to watch and listen, be it the clashing cymbals, tubular bells or the rows of hanging gongs.

Although I was impressed by the Messiaen, especially given that the composer isn’t one I’d usually choose, it was Bruckner’s symphony no. 9 in the second half that made the concert for me. I perhaps paid even more attention than usual to the strings given that they didn’t have a part in the Messiaen. Wow, what a sound. I can still here the amazing pizzicato at the start of the second movement!

I don’t want to have to wait a few years for the orchestra to return to Brussels, so I think there’s nothing for it but to book a trip to Berlin and hear them in their home concert hall, the Philharmonie. And maybe catch the Artemis quartet in their home city too. Oh and why not discover the Literaturhaus Berlin while I’m at it. Ok the seeds of an idea have been planted!

Big films on a small scale

I finally discovered what claims to be the smallest cinema in Brussels: the Styx in the Ixelles area. Don’t ask me how it has taken me eight years of living in Belgium to make it there!

I felt like I was going back in time as everything about the cinema is on a smaller scale than we’re generally used to these days, including the entrance price at just 5 euros.

It seems to operate in a slightly haphazard and laid-back way, but quaintly so. For example, the cash desk, squeezed into the corner of the entrance area, was only staffed a few minutes before the film started. But then again, there weren’t exactly hordes of people to deal with. My friend and I were the only ones waiting to watch the 9pm showing of The Changeling, and merely two film-goers came out of the early evening film.

The room would have seated about 40 people, but the only other person to turn up was the projectionist who gave us a little wave as he set the reels in motion and bade us goodnight as we left.

I was a little disappointed that the piano, randomly placed in the corner of the room, wasn't played. I suppose it’s there to accompany the occasional showing of a silent film, but it wouldn’t have been out of place to have struck up a few chords before the film started!

The Styx, which is partnered with Actor’s Studio in the city centre, has just two screens, curiously numbered 2 and 3. It tends to show both arthouse films and more mainstream movies that have stopped running in the larger cinemas.

If you want to see what’s on at the moment, click on www.styx.cinenews.be. And to find the cinema, the address is 72 Rue de l'Arbre Benit, a stone’s throw from Place Boniface and Avenue Louise.

How much is this artwork worth to you?

A week’s stay in the south of France, an exhibition space in Berlin, a kiss, a smile, a therapy session – these were just some of the offers scribbled on post-it notes and stuck on the wall around the artworks on show at the Bozar in Brussels this weekend.

The idea behind Truc Troc, as the event is known (in French “truc” means “thing” and “troc” means “exchange, barter”), is that contemporary artists get the opportunity to exhibit their art and the public is invited to offer something in exchange for the work. It really makes you think about how much you’d give to be the owner of a particular piece.

The paintings, installations and photographs were on display Saturday and Sunday. The artists will now be looking at the bids and deciding which, if any, appeals and is a good deal for them.

There were four works that I would love to have in my apartment and for which I made an offer. I’ll let you know if I hear back!

St. Petersburg's wintry allure

I got back this week from my first trip to St. Petersburg and I certainly hope it won’t be my last one. What a city!

I just loved the facades of the buildings lining the city’s rivers and canals – blues, pinks, browns, greens and beiges. The coloured fronts, along with the white snow covering the ground, brightened up what otherwise could have been rather gloomy, grey January days.

It’s an easy city to explore on foot and so I made the most of that. And when it got too cold, there was always a cafe to hand for a pot of tea (I hadn’t realised what big tea-drinkers Russians are. I thought they generally just went for the harder stuff!) or a bowl of soup, a meat pie or a stuffed pancake. Of course, there was plenty of culture to enjoy too.

The Hermitage was amazing – I spent an entire day there and still barely touched the surface of what was to be seen. The Russian Museum was of a more manageable size and yet because there were so many new artists for me to discover, once again I felt that I didn’t really do it justice. That said, it more than piqued my interest to learn more about Russian art and I’ll be on the lookout for Russian exhibitions closer to home. I particularly liked the work of Natalya Goncharova (1881-1962), who painted both Winter (at the top of this blog post) and Four Envangelists (below).



On the musical front, I went to the Mariinskiy Theatre and saw Tchaikovsky’s Pikovaya Dama (Queen of Spades). I thought it was a brilliant production and the tenor playing the lead role of Herman, Vladimir Galuzin, was particularly impressive. Being in the Mariinskiy was a great experience in itself and then to be seeing a Russian opera set in St. Petersburg just topped it off perfectly.

An afternoon concert in the St. Petersburg Philharmonia was another highlight. The Philharmonia has an amazing history, with a seemingly endless list of famous 19th century musicians who performed here and great Russian composers who premiered their works here. The best-known example perhaps is Shostakovitch’s “Leningrad Symphony,” which was written during the Blockade of the city in World War II, and broadcast from the Philharmonia in August 1942.

Unfortunately there wasn’t any Russian music on while I was there. Instead I was treated to a programme of Mozart and Haydn, with a mesmerising performance of Haydn’s cello concerto in D major by Lithuania’s Vytautas Sondeckis.

I could say so much more about each of the above aspects of my trip and maybe I will in a future blog post. For now though, I think I’ll put on one of the CDs I bought and have another look at my photos!

Amitav Ghosh on Opium, Migration and Cross-Dressing

If you live in Brussels, love books and haven’t yet discovered Passa Porta, all I can say is you’re in for a treat. Describing itself as Brussels’ international house of literature, it’s a multilingual bookshop, a venue for literary events and a temporary residence for writers and translators all rolled into one.

Amitav Ghosh, whose novel Sea of Poppies has recently been translated into Dutch, was Passa Porta’s guest this morning. Speaking for an hour to an audience of approximately 100 people, Ghosh touched on the inspiration for the book, the historical research he undertook before putting pen to paper and his relationship with language.

Ghosh first saw the migration of Indian workers as a potential theme for his latest book while he was writing The Glass Palace, which is set in Burma and India. The theme became “completely absorbing for me,” he said.

In Sea of Poppies, the author focuses on the departure of a boat in the 1830s, just before the Opium wars, taking indentured workers from India to Mauritius. This period of history isn’t well known in India and yet about 20 million people were “torn out of the sacred geography of India,” according to Ghosh.

To learn more, one of his research trips was to the Mahatma Gandhi Institute in Mauritius, which has preserved these people’s emigration certificates and other documents listing their caste, religion, height and other personal details.

Ghosh, his crop of white hair standing out from his all-black attire, came across as a serious and extremely well educated man who also had a great sense of humour and often broke out into chuckles. He switched back and forth between the serious and the amusing, one moment discussing the historical background to his novel, the next explaining how cross-dressing was a common part of ship life or how inventive the English creole language can be in obscenities.

It was a great way to spend a Sunday morning and I’m looking forward to future Passa Porta events.

Fairground Attraction

Belgium is renowned for its quirkiness and “Continental Superstar” is a perfect example. Situated in the Cinquantenaire museum (part of the Royal Museums of Art and History), Continental Superstar is a dance hall filled with fairground organs and other mechanical musical instruments.

The space is filled with bright and gaudily coloured instruments and statues, plenty of kitsch and mechanical music. In the far corner of the room there is a bar, but no staff, or potential customers for that matter, to be seen. I was left unsure as to whether I was in a dance hall, an exhibition room or just a temporary storage space.

According to the museum, around 1900 Antwerp developed alongside Paris as an important production centre for mechanical organs used in dance halls, cafes and at fairs. As the industry declined, replaced by jukeboxes, radios and gramophones, a Brussels man called Joseph Ghysels resolved to save and restore many of the organs.

It is his collection of street and fairground organs, barrel pianos and other instruments, bought in 2007 by Flemish minister for Culture Bert Anciaux, that are on show at the Cinquantenaire museum.

The name Continental Superstar was the title of a 1970s recording of what the museum calls the “world-famous star” of the Ghysels collection, a dance organ made by Theophiel Mortier in 1923. As far as the museum is concerned the title could also apply to Ghysels himself for preserving this quirky piece of Belgian patrimony.

Continental Superstar is on show until March 8, 2009.

Photo: Dansorgel Mortier 1905-1911 (Royal Museums of Art and History)

Heat, red bricks and too little music

Well I’m back in Brussels after my whirlwind tour around England. As well as family and friends, port and mince pies, there were also a couple of cultural highlights.

Art:
I saw the Rothko exhibition at the Tate Modern in London. It was brilliant. I left with a completely different appreciation for colours – some were so warm that heat seemed to actually be emitted from the canvas and others made you realise how individual any one particular colour is. I couldn’t believe how long could be spent looking at such deceptively simple works.

Architecture:
As you probably know, the Eurostar now arrives at St. Pancras station in London. While I’m not a fan of that from the point of view of my personal travel convenience, I am a big fan of the building itself. The Victorian architecture, and in particular the red brickwork, is just great. And I hadn’t realised until I made my first trip into Leeds this time that this northern city centre boasts some of the same Victorian brickwork.

Music:
Unfortunately my trip was somewhat devoid of music, though there was plenty of Radio 4 to be had, which is also very important. I think for this category, I’ll have to cheat and say the original music manuscripts on display in the British Library’s gallery of treasures.

And on that note, here’s to cultural discoveries, however small or large, in 2009.