[artinfo] Performatik 2015: the Brussels performance art biennale

[e-flux]

Performatik 2015
the Brussels performance art biennale
18-29 March 2015

<http://www.performatik.be>www.performatik.be

The fourth edition of Performatik, the Brussels 
(Belgium) performance art biennale, will take 
place from 18 to 29 March. The festival seeks out 
the boundaries, unravels codes and stimulates 
meetings between performance arts and visual 
art. The binding element is the live event, the 
meeting between audience and performer, in the 
here and now.

Performatik 2015 presents performances, 
exhibitions and talks by over 35 artists and 
curators:

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker / Bára Sigfúsdóttir & 
Noémie Goudal / Béatrice Balcou / Benoît Félix / 
Christian Bakalov / Collective éO (3) / Donatien 
Grau / Esther Ferrer & Emilio López-Menchero / 
Gaëtan Rusquet / Germaine Kruip / Grace Schwindt 
/ Hans-Ulrich Obrist / Heine Avdal & Yukiko 
Shinozaki/fieldworks / Hendrik Folkerts / Ivo 
Dimchev / Joëlle Tuerlinckx / Jonathan Burrows & 
Matteo Fargion / Karel Verhoeven & Yannick Franck 
/ Manon de Boer & George van Dam / Marino 
Formenti / Marthe Ramm Fortun / Philipp Gehmacher 
/ Ryoko Akama, Rie Nakajima, Miki Yui / Shannon 
Jackson / The Bouillon Group / Ulla von 
Brandenburg / Xavier Le Roy

The Performatik 2015 festival is organized by the 
Kaaitheater arts center in association with ten 
partners across the city, who all contribute 
their own expertise: Argos centre for art and 
media, Beursschouwburg, Bozar, CENTRALE for 
Contemporary Art, Don Verboven Exquisite Objects,
Passa Porta, Q-O2, WIELS, workspacebrussels and ZSenne art lab.

Performatik 2015 contains two impressive 
conversions. Choreographer Anne Teresa De 
Keersmaeker rethinks dance in an exhibition in 
WIELS. Using her archive as a starting point, 
Joëlle Tuerlinckx creates a theatre performance 
at Kaaitheater.

The festival opens with a performance of the 
first major creation for theatre by German artist 
Ulla von Brandenburg. She takes us back to the 
philosophy of the utopian socialist Saint-Simon.

Performance cannot be pigeon-holed. Marthe Ramm 
Fortun takes audiences with her in a 
"conversation performance" in Bozar, Christian 
Bakalov deprives us of sight in a journey through 
the Kaaistudios. Quite a few artists respond to 
our hyperfast age with rituals that invite us to 
take our time: the ceremony of Béatrice Balcou, 
the "square dance" of Germaine Kruip, the 
12-day-long piano performance of Marino Formenti, 
which merges art and life, private and public.

The disruption of viewing positions (theatrical 
spectator, museum viewer) is inherent to the 
cross-boundary genre that performance is. That is 
the subject of the new production by Xavier Le 
Roy and the exhibition by artist Benoît Félix, 
who also made contributions to the festival 
artwork.

The public space is also used: the streets by 
Esther Ferrer, the "grande dame" of Spanish 
performance art, and the town squares by the 
Bouillon Group, a young Georgian company. 
Following the Venice Biennial, they treat 
Brussels to a performance that depicts our 
relationship with the three monotheistic 
religions. 

Throughout the Performatik festival, a series of 
salons are held where experiences are discussed 
with artists, critics and curators such as 
Shannon Jackson, Hans-Ulrich Obrist a.o.

Performatik 2015 is curated by Katleen Van 
Langendonck (Kaaitheater), Rolf Quaghebeur 
(Argos), Tom Bonte (Beursschouwburg), Gerd Van 
Looy (Bozar), Carine Fol (CENTRALE), Don Verboven 
(Exquisite Objects), Julia Eckhardt (Q-O2), Dirk 
Snauwaert, Elena Filipovic (WIELS), and Marnix 
Rummens (Workspace Brussels).