KVS BREAKS OUT II

KVS breaks out again: this time in a hospital, a school and a care home - and on our online platform 247.kvs.be.

Corona continues on its rampage. While we await an exciting and rejigged spring season – to be communicated in January – KVS is not sitting idly. We are reinventing our mission, reaching new audiences, and temporarily rethinking our artistic assignment. In short – we’re innovating.

KVS BREAKS OUT for the second time this year. After the first late-summer edition on our back square, we are now breaking into the city, innovating culture and looking for new audiences and partners in the city to collaborate with.

Artistic interventions in the health care, education and elderly care sectors, and online at 247.kvs.be.

UZ Brussel

Now that the nightly applause has died down, we want to continue supporting the frontline healthcare staff and thanking them for their hard work in recent months through artistic interventions. KVS breaks out for the care sector. May the next wave be an artistic one.

From January to April, various artists will provide small artistic moments of pause in the hallways and canteen of UZ Brussel. Artists including Steven De bruyn, Les Mybalés, Junior Akwety, Lisette Ma Neza, Yassin Mrabtifi, Briana Ashley Stuart and Alesandra Seutin will be showing their best work – on a very small scale and fully compliant with safety measures. This way, KVS can offer frontline healthcare workers a varied programme of dance, music, spoken word and theatre.

WZC De Overbron

Talks of a collaboration are also underway with care home De Overbron in Neder-Over- Heembeek. KVS staff members were asked to help out as volunteers on various wards of the facility. We plan to also bring our artistic creations to the residents in the future.

“It’s a wonderful experience. I am very happy I can do something to help out in the care sector. My respect for their work has only grown. After a day of helping out, I go to bed exhausted by 8pm.”

Head of box office Adila Mezoudji

Don Bosco St-Pieters-Woluwe

The lower years of secondary school TSO Don Bosco in Sint-Pieters-Woluwe haven’t had a Dutch language teacher since September. After an email from director Dirk Kerckhoven to our artistic director Michael De Cock, the two institutes decided to work together. KVS is commissioning a number of artists to get to work with the students, to teach them and share experiences. In a later stage, the pupils will be able to visit KVS.

Dirk Kerckhoven: “It’s tragic that we cannot find teachers for these pupils, these young children, at this age. It’s a growing problem in a Brussels context: finding good teachers. That’s why I rolled up my sleeves and sent Michael an email.”

Michael De Cock: De Cock: “I am incredibly pleased with that brave email. For us it’s a way to share our passion and knowledge, and to create cultural innovation. Especially because artistic classes are more at risk than ever, now that it looks like Aesthetics classes may be removed from the curriculum. May this be a wider signal.”

KVS engaged a number of partner organisations and artists to join in this trajectory. Kristien De Coster (Ultima Vez) has agreed to go and teach, and the pupils will also be joining Wim Vandekeybus in a dance initiation class. Gerado Salinas, Joanna Rossi and Lisette Ma Neza will be working with the pupils around identity, home and literature. In a few weeks’ time, the pupils will be able to get to work themselves on the stage of KVS and in the rehearsal rooms of Ultima Vez and KVS.

Theatre at school: Schaduwvliegjes

City dramaturge Gerardo Salinas is working with Enrique Noviello, Chaib Idrissi and Junior Mthombeni on the project Schaduwvliegjes – a musical black comedy about a virus that won’t integrate into society and a growing fear within the population. In other words: a testimony to how corona can be a source of inspiration for new creations.

Since many pupils are no longer able to visit theatres on school trips – and those theatres are closed for the time being anyway – we are bringing this performance into schools. Fikry El Azzouzi is writing a text for these two remarkable actors, who previously appeared in L’Homme de la Mancha.

How can we trust each other if the enemy is invisible? Or is none of this as new as we think it is? Have we always been infected with fear and distrust?

KVS 24/7

KVS was among the first institutions in Belgium to fully commit to a digital platform during the first wave of corona infections. It was given the name KVS 24/7. Even though streaming can never replace real togetherness, it’s a way for us to reach our audience, and especially the most vulnerable in our society, during these times – worldwide. We are incredibly proud of the plentiful views and positive reactions the platform has received.

In recent weeks, KVS 24/7 showed off some golden oldies and new creations. Audiences could watch Unsung by Valentijn Dhaenens (1800 views in two weeks) in the context of the American presidential elections, and the newly created controversial film Courage by Dayna Ash as a substitute for our SLOW#05: Queer Courage. December brings the film Here After, which Wim Vandekeybus created for his production Puur, as well as the powerful Malcolm X by Junior Mthombeni, Cesar Janssens and Fikry El Azzouzi.

Many of these performances remain available on demand. You can still watch ICE, Mindblowers 2020, Mrs Dalloway and Just as long as you are there whenever and wherever you want.

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