A multidisciplinary marathon

This weekend, Brussels’ Beursschouwburg celebrates 50 consecutive years of contemporary theatre, dance and music with 50 consecutive hours of contemporary theatre, dance and music.

Beursschouwburg first opened its doors to the public on 5 February 1965. The progressive-minded theatre was founded by a breakaway group of provocateurs from the Royal Flemish Theatre (KVS) who rightly recognised that modernists the world over were turning the page on classical theatre. Not to be outdone, these Belgian artists established an enduring forum for contemporary creation.

The venue’s current general director, Tom Bonte, and his team have decided to observe its golden jubilee with more than just a champagne toast and self-congratulatory speeches. Beursschouwburg’s 50th is to be a multidisciplinary marathon with a new activity every hour on the hour for – you guessed it – 50 hours. And all for free.

“We could also have done 50 days, but I don’t know how we’d survive,” Bonte laughs as we sit down for a chat. “But, seriously, we wanted to do something special. This anniversary is a unique experience for the public and, at the same time, it shows the range of activities that we programme throughout the season.”

The offerings span the artistic spectrum, from cutting-edge performance to contemporary choreography, and from multidisciplinary visual arts to trendy electronic music.

The only performances to be repeated are choreographer Jefta Van Dinther’s gritty sound-and-vision experience Grind and Mark Tompkins and Mathieu Grenier’s whimsical cabaret Opening Night (pictured). This also marks the Belgian premiere of the latter, a vaudeville-style production that takes us into the American dance halls of the early 20th century where today’s pop culture was born.

Paris-based American performer Tomkins takes his public on a musical voyage through the century that was, complete with vocal standards by Irving Berlin, rock-and-roll by Elvis Presley and present-day pop by Beyoncé (with a few Tomkins-Grenier originals thrown in for good measure).

Contemporary Austro-Franco-Belgian theatre company Superamas spices up the wee morning hours with Dance Is a Monkey Business. This unbridled intervention will see Beursschouwburg’s various public spaces invaded by dancers in monkey suits.

Mornings promise to be decidedly calmer. To wit, wellness activities like Pilates are not accompanied by frenetic performers in animal guise. There are even a few hours set aside for family fun, including cartoons, workshops and a performance of the onomatopoeic Toink by local youth theatre Bronks.

The kid-friendly interlude is only natural, according to Bonte. “If you’re putting on 50 hours, you have to focus on different audiences.” What’s more, Bronks founder Oda Van Neygen is a Beursschouwburg alum.

Revellers are also invited to take a trip back in time to Beursschouwburg’s year zero. Experimental in 1965 is a smorgasbord of five international art-house films that reflect the artistic ferment of the times. Among them are Kenneth Anger’s three-minute tribute to auto-erotica Kustom Kar Kommando and American filmmaker Jud Yalkut’s Turn Turn Turn, a psychedelic exploration edited around a cut-up version of the eponymous radio hit by US rock band The Byrds.

Contemporary art has come a long way in the past half-century, and so has Beursschouwburg. The common thread is an enduring commitment to experimentation. This is the spirit that Bonte – who has admittedly only been part of the Beursschouwburg story for a few years – hopes to celebrate.

“The theatre has of course had its ups and downs because every director has taken risks,” Bonte says. “Some risks result in success; others don’t. But Beursschouwburg can always be counted on to push the envelope, to do something different.”

Arguably the biggest risk was opening the venue in the first place. In 1965, the central Brussels neighbourhood around the Beurs was largely abandoned. Worse, local audiences were hardly receptive to an unfamiliar and frankly iconoclastic brand of avant-garde theatre, which in those early years was made all the more so by the organisation’s stridently Flemish cultural politics.

Although it remains subsidised by the government of Flanders, Beurschouwburg’s nationalist edge has softened greatly since. Not long after its inauguration, in fact, the theatre settled into a mostly cosmopolitan rhythm.

Now, thanks in part to this cultural anchor, the surrounding streets comprise one of the capital’s most swinging districts. The theatre became a cultural hub during the 1980s, when associated artists like choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and visual artist Jan Fabre became international luminaries. 

The following decade the Beursschouwburg creative team focused on urban issues and city activism. They even famously organised a squat of the then-derelict hotel across the street, now the Marriott. “I think this is the best kind of cultural policy,” Bonte says. “Beursschouwburg didn’t just benefit artists or audiences. It literally changed the neighbourhood.”

50 Hours of Beursschouwburg
5-7 February
Auguste Ortsstraat 20-28, Brussels