SMELLS LIKE CIRCUS

Vu/Vue' is object theatre, miniature circus and involuntary clowning around the small obsessions of everyday life. Small obsessions that can become sickening and eventually explode. Recognizably hilarious.

Hypermodern post-pop-punk juggling. Juggling legend Wes Peden returns with a rollercoaster show that bends and twists the theatrical rules, in a set of inflatable structures and electro beats composed of rollercoaster sounds. Hold on for the ride of your life.

A plea for human fallibility for we are all clowns. Three performers return to the tradition of clowning to portray the intrinsic rage of being human. The clown's unsteady figure smashes its way through human history and beyond, with cheerful recklessness and pretentiousness.

Alexander Vantournhout takes the stage as Thor wielding his own Mjölnir. Will the hammer be controlled? The relationship between performer and hammer soon becomes ambiguous. Where does he get the strength to manipulate this heavy hammer and when does the hammer take over and become uncontrollable?

Three bodies weave through a tight system of shapes in a single repetitive pattern: the infinity loop. In this extremely physical and relentless performance, the stakes become higher and more challenging.

Hans Beckers and Kurt Demey find each other in the use of natural elements, the search for a magical experience and interactions with and between the audience. 'Ritselingen' is a thrilling combination of magic and music in which techniques from the world of illusion, subtle interventions and manipulations by the audience themselves, provide surprise and amazement.

A shot sounds
A bird falls
Three figures provide invisible feathers of a soft fading sound.

In Silly Symphonies, the players depict through sound a world where you as an audience witness a succession of unforeseen endings: from crashing cars to shot birds, from sinking fishermen to swirling paratroopers. 

Are they complicit in ending endlessly or do they provide sound for what would otherwise pass unnoticed?

Which imagination is shattered, which is slowly fading? Which whispers softly and reassuringly when all the sound disappears? 

Using the auditory medium of bruitage, Marius Lefever, Jef Van der Burght and Senne Vanderschelden tackle these questions in a playful, sometimes almost clownish way, without avoiding the darker corners of humanity.

You are cordially invited for a candlelit dinner. 

Every year, since forever, Miss Sophie celebrates her birthday: a table for 5, delicious food and good wine of the abundant kind, 4 empty chairs and a butler doing his best to fill the void. 

‘Same as last time, Miss Sophie?’ - ‘Same as always, James!’

After the successful shows Plock! and murmur, Grensgeval is creating KORROL, a new circus performance for everyone aged four and above. KORROL will be the final part of the trilogy about art and creation.

In KORROL, an acrobatic architect composes space with tonnes of concrete. Jonas builds towers, the towers become a city, a desolate plain, a human being. But every time he tries to lay the last brick, his work proves unfinished. Jonas balances precariously on wobbly towers, jumps on his hands from stone to stone. But no matter what he tries, everything remains so stiff and still. Until he puts on the concrete: donning heavy shoes, he orchestrates a small ballet, in a duet with a massive ball he skims past his audience. He (re)builds up his whole body. Even when he almost collapses under the weight, Jonas just finds the freedom for a duet between toe and little finger. 

​When Jonas places his concrete head in the hands of the audience, they become co-bearers of his creation. In a world of traveling and tangible sound, they remold the world together. Result: a dazzling new circus sound theater in which the audience is immersed. With drumming blocks, a petrified acrobat and dancing concrete.

Inbal Ben Haim is both a circus artist and a visual artist. This dual education has led her to devise an original, poetic and virtuous show in which she creates her own device of paper — folded, twisted, connected, kneaded... An incredible duel arises between the artist and the paper. Material to dance with, to hang on to, and to dream about. Inbal Ben Haim has created a striking aerobatic work that deploys paper as a metaphor for our vulnerability in a show that simply amazes. 'PLi' is a circus UFO not to be missed. Seriously.

This year's edition of Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast will gather conversations about clowning with Micha Goldberg and Geert Belpaeme. Our guests will talk about their experiences around the topic, the similarities and differences in approaches to their artistic practices and reveal sources of inspiration, from movies to books and scientific research. With a pastry and coffee in hand, we will delve deeper into the how and why of their work. 

Guests are Geert Belpaeme, Micha Goldberg, Rosmary Velasquez, Giulia Piana & Castélie Yalombo.

Moderation by Valentina Barone