Schedule of INDUSTRY REFLECTION DAYS PERFORMING ARTS: with Landscape Sketch of the Arts sessions

We will start the do-and-think days in plenary with an introduction by Flanders Arts Institute about the Landscape Sketch of the Arts process, with which the sessions will continue in the afternoon. This will be followed by a workshop around the question of what playfulness means in our everyday practices and society by Geert Belpaeme.

What can we learn from players, play and playfulness? What is play and what can more play and playfulness teach us in everyday life? How do we deal with our reality and environment while playing? And what potential lies behind radically embracing play & playfulness?

Geert Belpaeme invites you to enter into the conversations, encounters and challenges of our performing arts field through playfulness. In an artistic community in which so many practices start from play, we could use much more playfulness towards the structures and dynamics of the field. As a starting point, he uses his own book (to be published in September 2024 by publisher Letterwerk), as well as texts by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Rosi Braidotti, Karen Barad and others.

This short workshop at the beginning of the day is followed by a reflection moment at the end of the day. Throughout the day, you will be invited to act and think from playfulness.

After the plenary part, you can register for activities that come from the submissions of the open call: a workshop on safe(r) spaces or a think tank on sharing and reusing technical and building materials.

How can we reduce the cultural sector's waste? With the help of everyone from the sector, we want to explore alternatives to remove barriers to material sharing. Creation processes often lack the time and knowledge to think ecologically, but together we can create wider support for a more sustainable policy in the sector. At the thinking days, we map out the fundamentals and make an action plan for the future. In addition, concrete tools will be provided to get started right away to make an ecological difference today.

Are you interested? Join the thinking days and help build a collective materials bank, where sets, costumes, technical material and more can be shared and reused. 

Co-organised by Gilles Pollak (light, technician and scenographer for TAZ, WOLF WOLF, Camping Sunset and more) & Eva Bracke (production manager for HTF, Camping Sunset and more) 

During their careers, artists move from one role to another. From informal to formal scenarios, as trainer, artist or organiser, as creator or performer, both on stage and behind the scenes. When moving between these worlds, safety is key. How can we ensure a safe environment and for ourselves and others?

In recent years, the circus sector has been working on safety as an integral concept, where technical, physical and psychosocial safety are of equal importance. Safety is a shared responsibility in which everyone contributes according to their ability and each plays their part. What can we learn from each other? Which fuck-ups carried valuable insights? We invite the performing arts sector to a joint moment of reflection around safety in the performing arts.

A vegetarian lunch will be provided at the festival centre.

In the afternoon, we split into nine parallel discussion tables, each around burning issues concerning the performing arts landscape and the arts field more generally, within the Landscape Sketch of the Arts process that Flanders Arts Institute is developing in dialogue with the arts sector.

Who is our audience, and how do we engage with them? How do we work on sustainable and lasting relationships? This session is a follow-up to our April 2024 Landscape-session young audiences.

On stage, stories can be told in different forms. We dive into those forms that remain underexposed within the Arts Decree, such as cabaret, spoken word, comedy, drag, ... . How open is the sector to these forms of storytelling and their narratives? How do they contrast with the theatre, performance and dance we know so well? A warm invitation to all storytellers in the sector to share their practices with us.

There is a remaining gender imbalance in technical-artistic roles. Certainly regarding positions with more responsibilities, diversity generally remains small. Why is this? What can we do about it? From education to the workplace: we invite you to join us in thinking about how we work together towards greater equality on all levels.

Today, the various distribution models are under pressure. Which ones work better, which ones are no longer adapted to current needs? How do they relate to creatorship, production, programming and presentation? And if change is needed, what can and should it look like? This session is a follow-up to our June 2024 Landscape-session on distribution.

Both professional and amateur arts find a place and audience in our broad and diverse sector. There is no divide between the two practices, quite the contrary. Characteristics, questions and needs overlap. Yet they have different decrees and policies. Where is the real difference, and most importantly, how can the two circuits reinforce each other?

What does working internationally in the performing arts look like? Is internationalization limited to distribution and touring, or is there more need for cultural enrichment, knowledge sharing, engagement and solidarity? And how does this relate to ecological impact, human carrying capacity, political change and economic inflation?

Co-productions can provide financial support for artistic development, productional trajectories and distribution aspects. Inflation and lower budgets for the same number of partners create more work and more competition to bring in co-producers. How does co-producing relate to our field today?

 Art and education are very important to each other. Creativity, critical sense and imagination are crucial in the development of all young people. How do education and the arts find each other in designing engaging teaching materials, experiencing contemporary art or working with artists in the classroom? How to free up the necessary time and resources for this in schools, arts organisations and artists? Is there room for experimentation, and what inspiring practices and methods can strengthen cooperation? In short, how can art become an integral part of children and young people's lives and learning?

How do we as a field stand against social and political injustice, and the violation of human rights? Many artists demonstrate strong commitment, but is there consensus on this as a sector? How do we strengthen and protect our artists in this as an institution? Is there more than “just” providing a platform? A conversation about our responsibility as institutions and a field in times of social crisis.

BREAKFASTCLUB is an intimate meeting with an artistic proposal and with each other. At an unusual time, with a snack and a drink as a binding factor, other ways of sharing, looking and experiencing become possible. Gouvernement’s concept combines artists’ presentation moments with a moderated conversation on the themes evoked by the works on show.

For this iteration of BREAKFASTCLUB and in the context of Het Theaterfestival, we put together a programme with Art Science students at UGent on young people and children as artistic partners. Together, we ask how children’s play can be an artistic tool. We first watch Divinations (2019) by Sarah Vanagt, in which children in Brussels, Sarajevo and Athens predict the future using a projection of materials they found on the street. Afterwards, Mats Vandroogenbroeck and Jonas Baeke will provide a reading of their brand-new children’s book Bambiraptor, based on the children’s show of the same name. 

All this will prompt a conversation with multidisciplinary artist Junior Akwety, artistic pedagogue Maily Beyrens Xu and artistic director of Ghent theatre for preschoolers 4Hoog Simon D’Huyvetter

BREAKFASTCLUB is Lauren Borremans, Vincent Focquet, Marie Umuhoza & Nele Keukelier a project by Gouvernement with the support of KAAP, VIERNULVIER, STUK, CAMPO, De Studio, het TheaterFestival, Rekto:Verso, Universiteit Gent en De Vlaamse Gemeenschap

What process is needed to redistribute power within the (socio)cultural and arts sector? Why is it that internal workings fail to be representative enough of society? How can contemporary (performing) arts be accessible to everyone? Are our houses really open, and as safe as we want them to be?

In short: what is needed to radically break the already perceptible shift in leadership in the sector? And above all - what do we do about it? Open Space Technology is a method where all attendees set the agenda together and where we are invited to share insights and experiences in a safe environment. We arrive at concrete and realistic working points through the perceptions of all participants.

For organisations and advocates from the (socio)cultural and arts sector together with their participants and volunteers, and everyone who likes to discuss the theme of ‘power redistribution’.

A proposal by Cultureghem & Demos vzw in collaboration with the learning network How to OMTA (30cc Leuven, BUDA Kortrijk, S.M.A.K., Kunstencentrum VierNulVier & Park Poetik)

A vegetarian lunch will be provided at the festival centre.