Rubens: The Tarantino of his time?

Rubens was the Quentin Tarantino of his day. Or at least that’s how the Bozar in Brussels is presenting the 17th century Flemish painter in its latest exhibition.

The comparison is made because of Rubens’ almost cinematographic depiction of aggression, fighting and barbaric scenes. Many of the Flemish master’s works are sensational: loud, forceful, and sometimes violent, created in the service of Catholic propaganda and absolutist rulers.

Yet Rubens also had a sensual side to his work, as seen in his informal family portraits, landscapes and pastoral scenes, peasant dances and gardens of love.

It is these contrasting aspects of his work that are highlighted in the exhibition ‘Sensation and Sensuality: Rubens and His Legacy’.

The exhibition comprises more than 40 works by Rubens grouped around six themes - violence, power and lust on the one hand, compassion, elegance, and poetry on the other. 

Alongside the Rubens works are paintings by other artists - ranging from Constable to Klimt and Rembrandt to Renoir - that highlight the way in which the Flemish master has had a lasting influence on artists from the 17^th century through to the present day.

Bozar Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels

Until January 4. 

Image caption: 

Peter Paul Rubens, Pan and Syrinx, 1617, Oil on panel, 40 x 61 cm, Staatliche Museen, Kassel, Photo Ute Brunzel

 

The Metamorphosis of Mons

We’re packed into stands on opposite sides of a vast exhibition hall on the outskirts of Mons, Belgium. There are no windows and it’s all rather dark and gloomy. There are no signs of creativity. In fact, were it not for the guest list I was holding that stated the presence of leading artists, museum directors, choreographers and architects – presumably sitting somewhere in the dark cavernous hall - I could well have wondered if I’d walked into the wrong event.

©OlivierDonnet

Two hours later and my doubts had been totally dispelled. The huge space had been filled with more creativity than I have ever before seen at a press conference. It felt like a mini opening ceremony for London 2012, particularly when an open-top double decker bus full of British quirkiness arrived in the exhibition hall - think the Queen waving from the front of the upper deck, techno music blaring out, umbrellas, Sherlock Holmes, policemen on stilts…! But no, this was not the prelude to the Olympic Games, it was the launch of the cultural programme for Mons as European Capital of Culture next year: Mons 2015.

The launch event included the tricky choreography of several local buses arriving in the hall, each illustrating a different Mons 2015 theme through the words lit up on its destination board and the people and props that emerged from each vehicle. 

One bus was filled with sunflowers and had the words ‘I’m called Vincent. And you?’. Vincent Van Gogh lived for a time in the Mons area and it was there that he decided to become an artist. Cue visits to the house where he lived and an exhibition on the sources of his inspiration. Another bus said ‘I sing for Mons. And you?’ Standing on the roof was a singer dressed as the Renaissance composer Orlando di Lassus, who was born in Mons in the 1500s. One of the related events will be 700 amateur and professional choral singers gathering on the steps of the town’s Sainte-Waudru collegiate church. And as for the British double-decker, it represented London, which will be one of eight global cities featured in La Maison Folie (the Madness House).

In total Mons will organise some 1,000 cultural and artistic activities throughout the year. Many big Belgian names have got involved, including choreographer Frédéric Flamand, who founded the Charleroi Danses company, artist Arne Quinze, renowned for his large outdoor installations, and the designer and illustrator François Schuiten, best known perhaps for his comic strip work.

There will be no shortage of development projects happening in the town, with five new museums opening in Mons and a brand new train station designed by the architect Santiago Calatrava – and set to rival another of his creations, the futuristic train station in another Walloon town, Liège.

In its own words, Mons plans to undergo a metamorphosis. The town wants Mons 2015 to bring about positive change that will last well beyond 2015. As the outgoing Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo explained in his opening speech, Mons has undergone difficult economic times in recent decades with the collapse of the industrial age. Mons 2015 will enable the former coal-mining area to turn the page and start to write a new and prestigious chapter, he said. “Mons 2015 will not be an end in itself; it will be the start of a new era,” said Di Rupo, who is also the official mayor of Mons.

©DavidBormans

So, as the six local buses, which by the close of the launch were all parked at one end of the hall, said on their destination boards:

In 2015

I am from Mons

She is from Mons

He is from Mons 

Everyone is from Mons

And you?

Marguerite Duras on a World Cup night

The literary evening got underway against an unusual background: that of the honking of horns and jubilant cheering as Belgium celebrated a World Cup victory on the streets of Brussels outside. Inside, journalist Laure Adler quipped to the packed hall how touched she was that so many people had turned up to listen to her on the same evening as a national football match.

The Frenchwoman had her Belgian audience on side and didn’t lose them for the duration of her interview about the life and work of the French writer Marguerite Duras, who would have been 100 this year.

Adler, whose 1998 biography of Duras has been reprinted this year, explained how she found Duras to be a writer who pushed the boundaries not only in literature but also in cinema and theatre. Duras is a writer she admires greatly and with whom she has identified ever since reading Un barrage contre le Pacifique at a particularly low moment in her life. Duras was also a writer who Adler had the opportunity to meet on several occasions.

Not everyone has always been so admiring of Duras. Adler mentioned the intellectuals Duras hung around with, many of whom mocked her. In fact, when Adler first approached Gallimard with her idea for a biography of Duras, the response was “You’re mad! No-one is interested in that!”

But Gallimard did publish Adler’s biography and in the intervening years has reprinted Duras’s works in its Folio paperback editions, opening the author up to a new generation of young readers. In China, the author of The Lover and Hiroshima mon Amour is the most read foreign writer!

Back to the drawing board

Adler’s biography on Duras took a while to see the light of day, not least because no sooner had she finished her first draft than Duras entrusted her archives to the Institut Mémoires de l’Édition Contemporaine (IMEC), providing a mass of new source material for the biographer. Adler threw her 700-odd pages straight in the bin and made a fresh start.

If the tales that Adler touched on during her public interview in Brussels this week are anything to go by – Duras’s childhood in Vietnam, her World War II experiences in France, her marriages and affairs, her alcoholism, her relationship with her French teacher mother and her absent father…- the story of the writer’s life almost sounds like a novel in itself.

The evening's interview was interspersed with readings of Duras’s work as well as audio clips of Duras herself speaking, with images of the late author projected on two large screens throughout. The event, organised by Brussels’ international literature house Passa Porta, provided a fascinating insight into a woman whose work I first studied on a film course at university. Given that it’s her centenary year, maybe this is the year to revisit her work; there will certainly be plenty of opportunities to do so.

Copyright Bellone 2011-2014

I cannot wrap up this post without mentioning the venue of this week’s event: La Bellone. What a wonderful architectural discovery in the centre of Brussels! From the main street (Rue de Flandre 46) the building isn’t particularly striking, but enter and the main corridor opens on to a covered courtyard dominated by a magnificent 17^th century façade. Built by Cosyn, the same architect who designed the Maison des Boulangers (Roi d’Espagne) on Brussels’ central square, this hidden gem is today a listed building.

KlaraFestival's 10th birthday party

Last night saw the start of the KlaraFestival's 10th birthday party - and what a way to kick off the two-week celebration! The audience was treated to a modern and contemporary programme played by one of the world's top orchestras, the Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, and one of the best known soloists in the classical world, the Chinese pianist Lang Lang.

The organisers promised a festival of fireworks and if the opening concert is anything to go by, then concert goers are not going to be disappointed.

Lang Lang was clearly the main draw of the evening, and it was his performance of Ravel's concerto for piano and orchestra in G that was chosen to round off the Saturday night programme. Jazzy, jaunty, exhilarating and exciting, there can't have been an audience member who didn't leave the hall with a smile on his or her face. It felt about as far from the clichéd image of a stuffy classical concert as you can get.

And in a way that's what the KlaraFestival is about. It's a festival that prides itself on original performances of classical, romantic, modern and contemporary music; it aims to convey the power of music through new performances. And that's why I look forward to the festival so much each year. Oh and if it doesn't feel like a year since the last festival, that's because it isn't: as of 2014 the organisers have switched the festival to early spring rather than autumn.

Also on the programme last night were John Adams' The Chairman Dances (1985), Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony opus 110a (1960) and Human Voices Only (2014), the brand new commission for the Royal Concertgebouw composed by Belgium's Kris Defoort, who was in the Bozar concert hall and came on stage to thunderous applause from his home crowd.

Belgian talent is a particular feature of this 10-year anniversary festival, with other well-known names starring throughout the two weeks including Philippe Herreweghe, Bernard Foccroulle, the Baroque Orchestra B'Rock and Muziektheater Transparant.

For the full festival programme, including those concerts that will be broadcast live on Klara radio, take a look here. Enjoy!

We're at the Brussels Book Fair!

 

'What's Cooking in Belgium' is making an appearance this weekend at the Brussels Book Fair - or La Foire du Livre de Bruxelles to give it its proper name. As luck would have it, two of the themes at the 2014 fair are UK authors and cooking, so we seem to fit in rather well! 

Two book signings are planned:
Palais Gourmand (in Hall 4), Sunday 23rd Feb. 3pm-4pm
Waterstones (Hall 1, Stand 127), Sunday 23rd Feb, 4pm-5pm

And there's a radio broadcast, featuring yours truly...:
RTBF La Première (Les Belges du bout du monde - La Première RTBF)
Sunday 23rd Feb, 9:10-10am

If you're in Brussels, be sure to pop by the fair and say hello. 

(Address: Tours et Taxis - nearest metro, Ijser; or free shuttle bus from Gare du Nord)

KlaraFestival 2013: melancholia

The KlaraFestival is underway in Brussels! The theme running through this year's festival, which is largely one of classical music but also incorporates dance, theatre and film, is melancholia. As the film director Lars von Trier said, "I see melancholia as a vitamin that we all need. In all western art there is something of melancholia, otherwise something's missing."

To bring this theme of melancholia to life, three composers feature heavily in the two-week KlaraFestival: Britain's John Dowland, born 450 years ago and one of the most influential musicians from the Elizabethan period, his compatriot Benjamin Britten whose centenary is being widely celebrated this year and the Russian master Dmitri Shostakovich, a contemporary and close friend of Britten.

Last night Shostakovich and Britten were on the programme in a performance by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra conducted by the young and lively Teodor Currentzis. The concert opened with Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, which was a first for me and throughout which I was totally captivated by the tenor Ian Bostridge's interpretation. After the interval the focus switched to Shostakovich, first a thrilling Piano Concerto No. 2 played by Alexander Melnikov followed by an energetic Symphony No. 9.

Earlier in the week I went to hear ‘Missa sopra Ecco si beato giorgno for 40 and 60 voices’ by Florentine composer Alessandro Striggio, the largest known polyphonic work from the entire Renaissance period. Still to come is a date with Quartet lab, a string quartet that is said to contrast established repertoire with contemporary works and improvisation.

There are also plenty of other offerings on the programme, including classical musicians interpreting Radiohead in a night club and a series of film classics all with a melancholic edge. Take a look at the KlaraFestival website to see if there's anything that grabs your attention. And if you can't make it in person, many of the concerts are broadcast on the radio.

What's Cooking in Belgium: it's out!

It's written, published and launched. Yes, What's Cooking in Belgium: Recipes and stories from a food-loving nation, written by yours truly and Neil Evans, is a reality…and there's far more to it than chocolate, beer and Brussels sprouts!

The book is a compilation of stories and recipes, grouped thematically, which together tell the story of Belgium and its love of food. Illustrating the recipes are fabulous photographs, for which neither Neil nor I can take any credit. For those we have the food stylist Hilde Oeyen and the photographer Diane Hendrikx to thank.

Our book in the front window!

The Brussels launch took place last week, supported by the publisher Luster, the English language bookshop Waterstones and Le Meridien hotel. We had a brilliant evening! We both really enjoyed giving our presentations, explaining how the book came about and how we went about researching and writing it, and were extremely pleased that so many people followed up with interesting questions. It was also fun signing copies of the book afterwards!

For more information about the book, please take a look at the publisher's website. For now, the easiest places to order the book are directly from the publisher, at Waterstones Brussels or simply get in touch with me.


Below are a couple of photos from our Brussels launch. Today Brussels, tomorrow...

The Sami make history in Brussels

Earlier this year I went to Inari in the far north of Finland, home to the Sami parliament. While I was there I was lucky enough to meet several Sami people, including one of the parliament's Vice-Presidents, Tiina Sanila-Aikio (pictured below). I learned a lot about the Sami culture, including how the indigenous Sami people are seeking to preserve their language and traditions.

© European Union 2013

By a stroke of luck, the Sami parliament happened to come to my hometown of Brussels this week where they made history by holding a session in the European Parliament. As you can see from the photos, they came attired in their traditional dress as they sought to remind the EU of the importance of fighting to preserve minority languages and cultures.

©Anna Jenkinson

The invitation to Brussels came from the MEP Nils Torvalds who in welcoming his Sami colleagues said, "We don't need to go very far back in history to see that the Sami people didn't have many rights in Finland...You should continue your fight. You have to save the Sami languages for your children. Without the Sami languages, the Sami culture won't be there in 100 years. We hope it will be there as long as Finland or Europe."

© European Union 2013

Nordic Dance Makes Waves in Bruges

December's here again and so is December Dance, an annual festival of contemporary dance in Bruges. This year's theme is 'Nordic Waves', and as the name suggests the focus is on dancers and choreographers from Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Denmark.

Westward Ho! choreography: Tero Saarinen
photo: Sakari Viika

The festival opened on Thursday evening with a triple bill from the Finnish choreographer Tero Saarinen. While each of the three pieces was very different in character, it was striking how each of them used light in an innovative way to complement the dance and music: Westward ho! had a backdrop of the aurora borealis (Northern lights), the visual focus in Scheme of Things was a large rectangular board of lights that at times resembled disco lights and at others the light of fire and other elemental forces, while in Vox Balaenae a prism suspended from the ceiling played light games with the dance floor and the soloist's costume.

VOX BALAENAE choreography:
Tero Saarinen
photo: Sami Kulju

Can't wait until Tuesday's performance which promises to be a showstopper with choreography by the Helsinki Dance Company's Kenneth Kvarnström, combining contemporary dance with live classical music and costumes from leading Swedish and Finnish fashion designers.

Check out the full programme here. The festival runs until December 16.

Heavenly music at the KlaraFestival

4 Elements - 4 Seasons - Sommer (Dvd Extract) from Stephan Talneau on Vimeo.

The Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin orchestra last night gave a performance of baroque music like I've never seen before. On the programme were 'The Elements' by French composer Jean-Fery Rebel and 'The Four Seasons' by Antonio Vivaldi, both pieces composed in the early 18th century and both brought to life not only by the musicians but also by a dancer.

The performance, which was part of the annual KlaraFestival in Belgium, was full of life, energy and movement. At times I was absorbed in the music, at others mesmerized by the choreography. Sometimes I found myself chuckling at the cheeky gestures, at other times quite simply wowed by the interaction of music and dance.

During Rebel's work, the choreographer and dancer Juan Kruz Diaz de Garaio Esnaola played with fire and danced in water as he interpreted the music of 'The Elements'. During Vivaldi's 'The Four Seasons', he wooed the solo violinist through the first signs of spring, the heat of summer, autumnal leaves and winter snowflakes. It really was a truly original and uplifting performance.

Another great concert earlier in the festival, whose theme this year is 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door', was 'Kosmos'. Have a read of my review in the Wall Street Journal.

The KlaraFestival runs until September 14, so there's still time to catch a concert, be it in Brussels, Antwerp or Bruges.

Manifesta comes to Belgium

Waterschei mine, location of Manifesta9
©Anna Jenkinson

My destination: a former coal-mining complex in Genk (Limburg province, Belgium). My reason: Manifesta, the roving European Biennial of Contemporary Art, which opened at the site this weekend and runs until 30 September.

I say contemporary art, but in fact there was as much history and heritage on show as there were new creations. From coal sacks hanging from the ceiling (as devised by Marcel Duchamp for the 1938 International Surrealism Exposition in Paris) to bookshelves filled with miners' employment booklets, from sculptures made of coal to a colourful, cascading installation of fabric by Chinese artist Ni Haifeng, the exhibition takes the visitor through centuries of industrialisation to the present day.

Ni Haifeng, Para-Production, 2012
©Anna Jenkinson

Inspired by the location's coal-mining heritage, the curators sought to underline the interaction between contemporary art, historic art and heritage. The result is a well-integrated exhibition with a strong thematic focus and plenty of resonances between archive documents, historical material and contemporary installations. The legacy of Manifesta 9, according to the organizers, will be an emphasis of how deeply embedded culture is in our society.


This year's biennial, unlike its predecessors, is taking place in one location: the beautifully renovated Waterschei mine. Officially known as the Andre Dumont mine after the man who discovered coal in Limburg, the site was completed in 1924, remaining a working mine for several decades before closing its doors in 1987.

Villa Empain: Art Deco Brussels Beauty

Villa Empain, on an embassy-lined avenue in Brussels, is a beautiful Art Deco residence that could have been lost forever had the Boghossian Foundation not stepped in and restored it to its former splendour. To read the rest of my article about Villa Empain, published in Flanders Today, click here. For some beautiful photos to whet your appetite, look no further than below.

© Europa Nostra

© Europa Nostra

© Europa Nostra

The Joy of The Sixteen in Bruges

© Mark Harrison

As Harry Christophers' vocal ensemble The Sixteen sang of the glory of man and of trumpets sounding, a sense of sheer joy rose up through my body. The voices rang out and filled the Concertgebouw Brugge concert hall in what was a truly wondrous experience.

The main work on last night's programme was Brahms' 'Ein deutsches Requiem', an unusual work perhaps for a group best known for its Renaissance and Baroque repertoire. But as Christophers has said, "Since Brahms had been so influenced by the Protestant Church music of the great German master of the early Baroque, Heinrich Schuetz, the Requiem seems to be perfect material for The Sixteen."

And in case you're wondering how a small vocal ensemble pulled off a masterpiece that usually demands a large choir and full orchestra, Brahms also wrote a scaled-down version with an arrangement for piano duet: it is this version that The Sixteen performed with pianists Christopher Glynn and John Reid.

One advantage of the version with piano duet is a more intense focus on the text, with the voices at no point being drowned out by an orchestra. The tone and texture of The Sixteen's voices underscored the meaning of the words and I had the sense that even if you hadn't understood the German text, or had a translation to hand, much of the meaning would have been understood simply through the musical interpretation.

The importance of singers understanding the text of a vocal score was recently highlighted by another conductor, Collegium Vocale Gent's Philippe Herreweghe. As part of a Herreweghe celebration this month, the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels showed the documentary film "Collegium Vocale, 40 years of passion" as a prelude to a performance by the choir of Beethoven’s Missa solemnis. In the documentary, several Collegium Vocale singers emphasised how, for Herreweghe, the text was of primary importance. You had to use your head as well as your heart when singing with him, they said. Those words would seem to be equally applicable to Christophers and The Sixteen.

Lang Lang seduces Brussels

“The hottest artist on the classical music planet” is how the New York Times described Chinese pianist Lang Lang a few years ago; this week Brussels music-lovers got to find out why the 29 year-old is still seducing audiences.

© Felix Broede / DG

At a concert at the Bozar on Tuesday evening, Lang Lang worked his musical magic as he opened with Liszt’s piano concerto no. 1 and followed it with Chopin’s ‘Grande Polonaise’. He wooed the piano, coaxing it to produce the textures and tones that he desired, and the piano seemed so smitten by this attentive pianist that it submitted to his every wish. Sometimes his fingers stroked the keys tenderly, at others he struck them ferociously as he explored the score’s possibilities and pushed at the musical boundaries.

The excitement he generated through his playing was enhanced by his gestures. As he played a slow, reflective passage he threw a cheeky, lingering look at the audience as if to say, ‘Did you enjoy that? Did you hear how I beautifully I interpreted the passage? You did? Yes, I thought so’. And as he launched himself into a fast section with such exuberance and panache, you couldn’t help but be swept along with his almost child-like enthusiasm.

He’s a showman, there’s no two ways about it. But it’s on the right side of showmanship. Lang Lang avoids the pitfall of his performance being just a spectacle, all gesture; there’s plenty of substance too. The musical accomplishment is admirable, the execution a breath of fresh air. His cheeky smiles, raised eyebrows and glances at the audience were not gratuitous; they helped the listener follow the musical line, providing pointers to Lang Lang’s musical interpretation.

When Lang Lang is on the bill, the attention is always going to focus on him. And yet Tuesday’s concert also featured a world-class orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw, which played as brilliantly as usual, and the British conductor, Daniel Harding, who in his mid-30s has already got a cv that many a conductor can only dream of.

It was always going to be tough to follow a first half featuring Lang Lang and orchestra by a second half with just the orchestra, but they pulled it off with a stirring performance of Beethoven’s symphony no. 3, better known as ‘Eroica’.

Whereas Harding had spent most of the first half of the concert hidden from my view by the piano lid, he completely captivated me in the second half as he directed the orchestra with his whole body, at times almost dancing as he followed the ebbs and flows of the score. By the end of the first movement, I wondered if he’d have the physical energy to continue for the rest of the symphony. Not since seeing Simon Rattle on the same stage have I been so mesmerised by a conductor; then again, in his late teens Harding was Rattle’s assistant at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Lang Lang and Harding, who have worked together on several occasions and are said to be good friends, both came across as musical personalities who had something to say about the music they were performing, who loved the music they were playing, and wanted to share that joy with the audience. The result was a truly uplifting musical experience.

KlaraFestival: September adventures

It’s back to school, back to work and back to a packed diary of cultural events. Just as suddenly as the concert halls and theatres of Brussels go very quiet in August (as most of the city disappears on holiday), come September there’s more to choose from than you could possibly have time for.

For classical music fans in Brussels, the first two weeks of September are dominated by the KlaraFestival, which takes its name from the classical music radio station Klara. This year the festival’s theme is ‘Imagine Paradise’ and, in the organisers’ words, moves “between hope and the imagination, between utopia and reality, between the beautiful and the horrific.”

As part of the festival, earlier this week I heard a mesmerising recital by cellist Steven Isserlis, with Denes Varjon on piano. Entitled Russian Utopia, the programme included Shostakovich’s Sonata for cello and piano in D minor and Scriabin’s Sonata for solo piano No. 5. The performances were exciting and energetic, be it Varjon playing the Scriabin with such panache that he literally jumped from the keyboard as he played the last chord or Isserlis emphasising the cheeky, almost sarcastic, moments of the Shostakovich with a wry smile of his own towards the audience. The engagement with the audience was maintained to the end, with final bows not only being taken by both players, but Isserlis also amusingly allowing his cello to take its own little bow.

This coming Sunday, the Brussels Philharmonic and the Flemish Radio Choir conducted by Sir Neville Mariner will be performing Britten’s War Requiem. The work, composed in 1962 to commemorate the bombing of Coventry by the German Luftwaffe 20 years earlier, has a score and text that “transcend historical circumstance and offer one of the most universal and poignant anti-war manifestos in the history of music,” according to the programme. Needless to say, this Sunday is the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the U.S.

Between now and the end of the festival on September 16, there’s at least one concert every day. Highlights range from the Akademie fuer alte Musik Berlin to Roger Norrington conducting the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. If you want something a little bit different though, then take a look at the final night’s line-up when a Brussels nightclub (Club Mirano) will open its doors to music from Bach to Glass played by DJs. The festival said it wanted to take "an adventurous approach" to classical music; no one could accuse it of failing to achieve that.

Antwerp’s MAS museum: making waves

Photograph by Jeroen Verrecht

Nothing quite prepared me for the ‘wow’ factor of the new MAS – Museum aan de Stroom (Musuem on the River) – in Antwerp. I’d seen plenty of photos and thought the stacked-tower design with its contrasting blocks of red sandstone and glass looked great, but the pictures didn’t convey any sense of what it would be like to be inside the 10-storey building.

As you go up the escalator from floor to floor, you feel how every level is twisted 90 degrees to form a giant spiral. Each time you go up a storey, you’re treated to one stunning view after another through the ultra-modern, wavy glass. When you get to the top, there’s a real treat in store: an open-air rooftop with a 360-degree panorama of the surrounding port and the city itself (an experience that can, incidentally, be enjoyed for free without an entrance ticket to the museum). There are even portholes in the glass safety barriers so that you can take the perfect photograph.

The museum has been built in Antwerp’s old harbour area and is supposed to herald a new era of development in this part of the city. I have to admit that before I visited the idea of ‘an area under development’ had made me think I’d be heading to a desolate part of town, probably in the middle of nowhere, where one stunning building would stand all on its own. In fact, the area is just a 10-minute walk from the city’s historic centre and the proximity to the water not only ties in with the maritime theme but also looks and feels good.

But what about the actual exhibits in the museum? All the publicity before the opening in May this year had gone on and on about how the museum would tell the story of Antwerp and its place in the world, but I couldn’t quite grasp what that really meant and what would actually be in the museum. My expectations dropped further when I learned that it would bring together former collections of the Ethnographic Museum, National Shipping Museum and Folklore Museum. I had images of a mish-mash of dull pieces that no longer had homes.

Far from it, it turned out. The sculptures from different religions, the scale models of old sailing ships and the oil paintings of Antwerp have instead all been given a new lease of life in this new environment. The curators have grouped the objects by theme (four themes over five floors) and included audio and video to help bring the exhibits to life and put them in context.  Next to old musical instruments there are buttons to press that make the sound of the bells or the flute you’re looking at; old paintings of Antwerp’s port hang from walls made of wooden crate strips to evoke the port atmosphere; the floor dedicated to the ‘World Port’ theme has the history of the maritime world running on a screen the length of the room; and as you leave the port-themed storey, you are encouraged to write a message and pop it in a bottle.

With a total of 460,000 items on display – and that’s not even taking into account the temporary exhibitions – you’re unlikely to get round the whole museum in one visit, but you can certainly pop your head into each floor and then focus on a couple of the themes in more detail. One downside for non-Dutch speakers is that a lot of the information is only in Dutch, but the introductory boards to each floor are in English as well as the national languages of Belgium. To get a taster, you can take an online tour at http://livetour.mas.be/uk/ . But don’t forget that photos and videos just don’t convey the wow factor. For that, you have to pay a visit in person.

Pina: All About Dance

Pina, the 3D film by Wim Wenders for the late choreographer Pina Bausch, is all about dance. Nothing surprising there, you might say. But the film really is about the visual beauty and physicality of dance and movement, not an intellectual reflection on dance. It is about the dance works created by Pina Bausch, not Pina Bausch the person.

Going into the cinema I had anticipated hearing a lot of the choreographer's own voice and listening to insights from dancers who had worked with the German choreographer. Don't get me wrong, the film includes archive footage of Bausch, but she doesn't say much in these clips, and it incorporates interviews with dancers who worked with Bausch at Tanztheater Wuppertal, but their comments reveal little.

Instead it really is the dance productions that take centre stage. Extracts from four of Bausch's works - Kontakthof, Le Sacre du printemps, Café Müller and Vollmond - dominate the film. Each is mesmerising and beautiful, enhanced by the 3D experience. For the film's 3D Supervisor François Garnier, using 3D was  ideal because dance is, by its very nature, movement in space. "3D has all the space, all the action, and all the movement to offer. The sense of physical sensation is much more powerful than any intellectual reflection," Garnier says on the Pina website.

The dance is left to speak for itself, creating a rich visual and sensory experience full of colour, movement and beauty. Viewers are left to make their own interpretations, rather than be guided by any voiceover or strong verbal narrative. The picture of Bausch that emerged for me was of a woman who expressed herself through gestures and movements, not lengthy discussions and debates. Her words to the dancers were few and far between, but the words she did utter were exactly what was needed to motivate, encourage and inspire them.

© NEUE ROAD MOVIES GmbH, photograph by Donata Wenders

The dancers are filmed both on stage and in outdoor locations in and around the German town of Wuppertal, which was Bausch's home and creative centre for 35 years until her sudden death in June 2009. As Tanztheater Wuppertal's long-time costume designer, Marion Cito, says, "I sometimes cannot believe that Pina Bausch is no longer here...One senses, however, that she lives on in her works." That is perhaps why it is so apt that it is the works that are at the centre of the film.

Toni Morrison gives Desdemona the voice Shakespeare never did

Last night I saw one of the first performances of the new theatre production ‘Desdemona’, directed by Peter Sellars with words by Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison and music by award-winning Malian singer-songwriter Rokia Traoré.

My overall impressions of the production, which gives a voice to Desdemona, the wife of Othello in Shakespeare’s play, were simplicity, beauty, radiance and power. Not just the words, but also the music, the staging, the lighting, everything.

To give you a taster, here are the production's opening words:

My name is Desdemona.  The word, Desdemona, means misery.  It means ill fated.  It means doomed.  Perhaps my parents believed or imagined or knew my fortune at the moment of my birth. Perhaps being born a girl gave them all they needed to know of what my life would be like.  That it would be subject to the whims of my elders and the control of men.  Certainly that was the standard, no, the obligation of females in Venice in the fifteenth century.  Men made the rules; women followed them.  A step away was doom, indeed, and misery without relief.  My parents, keenly aware and approving of that system, could anticipate the future of a girl child accurately.
They were wrong.  They knew the system, but they did not know me.
I am not the meaning of a name I did not choose.

Desdemona is at the KVS theatre in Brussels until Sunday May 29. It will go on to be performed worldwide, including at the Barbican as part of the London 2012 festival during the Olympic Games. To read my published article about the genesis of the show and how it ended up being performed in Brussels, click here.

Kunstenfestivaldesarts: Mexican theatre tackles guerrilla warfare

We may only be halfway through Kunstenfestivaldesarts, an annual arts festival that takes place across Brussels, but I’m pretty sure I saw one of its overall highlights this last week: the Mexican documentary theatre piece El Rumor Del Incendio (The Sound Of Fire).

The play explores a period of Mexican history, the guerrilla movements that sprang up in the country during the 1960s and 1970s and the subsequent deaths, political prisoners and forced disappearances. The subject is approached through the life of one former guerrilla: historian and teacher Margarita Urias Hermosillo.

© Carlos Somonte

The three actors, all in their mid-twenties, bring the period to life in an intelligent and thought-provoking way. They incorporate into their performance archive audiovisual footage, old tapes being played on cassette recorder and documents and film clips projected onto a screen, all of which remind us that this theatre production is based on real events.

© Carlos Somonte

It’s not simply a history lesson though. There is a strong narrative that is brought out by strong performances from the actors, particularly Luisa Pardo playing the role of Margarita Urias Hermosillo. There’s also a playful element as they use toy soldiers and a children’s train set to re-enact historical scenes. And moments of brilliant production, for example when a lit match is thrown towards a large screen projecting an image of a forest that at that moment switches to an image of a forest bursting into flames.

The play’s relevance to today is also highlighted as the actors ask questions such as: can a critical look at the past change the future?; what battles were fought before we were born?; how can we build a better country?; are there other systems for running things?; and why is it so difficult to criticise the present system?

While acknowledging the differences between then and now, the theatre group says in its notes about the play that they feel as if they live in a country where people have become insensitive to inequality and are incapable of shaping political projects bearing hope. “We feel straitjacketed faced with the very widespread opinion that the world is shut for good and only one system of political, social and cultural organisation now exists. A system which proves moreover to be very difficult to criticise, even though we are brought face to face with its enormous flaws and its terrible drawbacks in our everyday lives,” the group writes.

The project, which comprises this documentary theatre piece as well as a blog and a book, is not a call to take up arms. Rather it is what the theatre group calls “an attempt to restore the idea of utopia and the possibility of creating new thinking, making it possible for us to imagine fairer worlds.”

© Carlos Somonte

The Brussels shows are the first time that the theatre group, ‘Lagartijas tiradas al sol’ (‘Lizards stretching in the sun’), has performed in Europe. It won’t be the actors' last though. A list of other cities where they will be performing this year can be found on the theatre group’s website.

Vengerov to Make Comeback in Brussels: Relationship With Violin Back On

Maxim Vengerov broke off his relationship with his violin three years ago. “I needed these three years to put down the violin, to rest a little bit, to cool down,” Vengerov said in a recent interview with Radio Télévision Belge Francophone (RTBF). Now he’s decided it’s time to resume the love affair, and he’s chosen the Bozar in Brussels as the place to make that comeback on May 2.

Vengerov has spent the last three years concentrating on conducting. “If I would combine it with my violin playing, violin playing would be very jealous,” the Russian told RTBF. “I am incredibly happy that the time came again that I can rejoice with my beautiful violin.”

The music chosen to relaunch his performing career is the cycle of three violin sonatas by Johannes Brahms. “The cycle...is in itself perfection,” according to Vengerov, who will only play during the first half of the concert.

The concert's context is a new Musica Mundi project to develop a school for musical excellence, for which Vengerov is acting as an ambassador. Consequently, the second half will be performed by Musica Mundi Young Talents and the Belorussian Youth Orchestra, conducted by Vladimir Perlin.

However, the concert will not be a one-off for Vengerov, who told RTBF that he planned to do a tour with the Brahms sonatas and then take Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherazade on tour worldwide, combining violin-playing and conducting.

And what about the violin’s jealousy of the conducting, the interviewer asked. “Now it’s all in harmony,” he laughed. Having experienced the violin concertos from the orchestral side, Vengerov feels he has a more complete experience of the works.

“Having this wonderful three-year rest from the violin, I feel reborn,” Vengerov said in the RTBF interview. “When people ask me, Maxim, who do you think now is the most promising young violinist in the world, I say I think it’s me! ... For me, every note that I play now is a revelation, a new thing.”