From dusk to dawn, the artists engage in a ritual related to transgender experience. . 

As contemporaries in art and queer kinship, Cassils and SJ Norman arrive to this action as trans people who came of age in the shadow of absence: a pre-internet generation, marked by the social rupture of the AIDS crisis and its concomitant currents of religious and medical violence. The pair’s shared experiences of disorientation form the work’s central interrogation.  

CASSILS & SJ Norman (CA/AU)

As members of a generation of trans people who found no reflection of themselves in the culture at large, devoid of the vernaculars of identification, the artists begin with the question: How does one remain present in a body so shaped by absence? How does a body reclaim itself from the tides of history and the anxieties of an uncertain future? How might two trans bodies hold each other accountable to their present awareness? How might this tethering be understood as an act of love? a song of praise?  

This international premiere of “Devotion” will employ a ritualized knife play to bring the artists back into the loving embrace of trans masculine brotherhood and connection with the present moment. Cassils and Norman will sit from sunset to sunrise in a meditative state, each of them holding a sharpened blade. Utilizing the Anapanasati technique, the pair commit to the simple task of witnessing their own and each other’s breathing bodies. The ebb and flow of each artist’s awareness is mapped on the surface of the skin in the form of small incisions- one artist marking the other any time their focus strays. Far from a punitive act, this ritualised consent to rupture and be ruptured can be understood as a gesture of reverence for all a body can hold, and all it must relinquish. 

CASSILS is a transgender artist who makes their own body the material and protagonist of their performances. Cassils’s art contemplates the history(s) of LGBTQI+ violence, representation, struggle and survival. For the artist, performance is a form of social sculpture: Drawing from the idea that bodies are formed in relation to forces of power and social expectations, Cassils work investigates historical contexts to examine the present moment. Cassils has had recent solo exhibitions at HOME Manchester, Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Perth Institute for Contemporary Arts, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, NYC; Institute for Contemporary Art, AU; Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts; School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston; Bemis Center, Omaha; MU Eindhoven, Netherlands.  

Website

SJ Norman is a cross-disciplinary artist and writer. He is a non-binary transmasculine person and a diasporic Koori of Wiradjuri descent, born on Gadigal land. Norman’s work centres the corporeal and the inter-corporeal: he inhabits and disrupts the prevailing vocabularies of performance as a queer/ed Indigenous body, addressing that body as both site and material. He utilises ephemeral, process-based and long-durational practices as a means of antagonising the prevailing economies of colonial spectatorship and capital value, as well as a means to excavate and elevate embodied knowledges.  

More info

 

Hybrid live/DJ soundscape from Lou Drago.

Infos

DATE CONTENU
2023/04/222030 22.04.2023
20:30 > 23:59
KANAL – Centre Pompidou (K1), Brussels
Réservations
 
2023/04/230000 23.04.2023
00:00 > 07:00
KANAL – Centre Pompidou (K1), Brussels
Réservations
 

Durational performance from sunset to sunrise

Beware, this performance involves cuts and blood.

Entrance and exit possible

Free admission for “A Different North”, G J Lees & Adam York Gregory with the same ticket.

In co-presentation with KANAL – Centre Pompidou.

With the support of the Embassy of Canada and the Canada Council for the Arts. 

Trouble #12 « It’s about time » 

Trouble #12, « It’s about time » : it’s the question of time (and especially the time we allow for ourselves, that we give to relationships and to works so that they can resonate) that will be at the heart of the Brussels biennial of performance. To survey notions of historical time, stolen time, out-of-time, time loops, generational differences, protracted periods … or on the contrary, very brief moments. Are you losing your bearings? It is high time that Trouble comes back to trouble you!

 

Full programme

Partners

In partnership with KANAL – Centre Pompidou, Charleroi danse, La Balsamine, Maison des Arts, ENSAV – La Cambre, Halles de Schaerbeek, GC Ten Noey, Ateliers Mommen, Fondations 312, ESA Le 75, W-B T/D, Calame, Femma, Wiegwijs, Radio Panik, Institut européen de la culture arabe and Infini théâtre.

With the support of Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles (Service de la danse, Service des arts plastiques and Promotion de Bruxelles), Creative Europe programme of the European Union (project « Time For Live Art »), Commission communautaire française, Région de Bruxelles-capitale (Image de Bruxelles), City of Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, Wallonie-Bruxelles International, Embassy of Canada, Embassy of the Kingdom of Netherlands, Performing Arts Fund NL, Pro Helvetia, ENSAV – La Cambre.

About

The Performance Event in Brussels is Back!

Launched in 2005, TROUBLE has ever since been the international performance event in Brussels. As of 2019, Studio Thor has been organising and producing the Festival, with its studio and environs in the heart of the city’s popular commune of Saint-Josse serving as its nerve centre. TROUBLE is held every two years, in the odd years.

Trouble: philosophy

TROUBLE has retained the ingredients that ensured its previous successes. With its dense and wide-ranging program, the five-day long event focuses on numerous artistic proposals that are both out-of-the-ordinary and differ from routine formats. Performances involving the human body, yet created by artists whose roots are in the visual arts, contemporary dance, experimental theatre, oral poetry, music or the night scene… for a vibrant mix of artistic families and audiences. Instead of spectacle/s meant for mere consumption, real-life experiences are on offer: self-involvement, risk-taking, vulnerability, interactivity, finely balanced between local personalities and artists from elsewhere–– and often discoveries. To ensure a more diverse vision of art, our program gives pride of place to women, queers, racialized and minority groups. We also offer a platform to young artists, thanks to the collaboration with the performance course at Brussels’s renowned visual arts school La Cambre (ENSAV). While the Festival incorporates a demanding reflective aspect, it by no means excludes an engaging playful dimension!

 

Box Office

PAY WHAT YOU WANT

  • 4-day pass: 30 > 60€ (full price: 40€)
  • 1-day pass: 8 > 21€ (full price: 12€)
  • 1 performance: 5 > 10€ (full price: 8€)
  • 1 performance – free price: 0 > 15€ (full price: 8€)

 

Booking & tickets

 

Access

Studio Thor

49, rue Saint-Josse, 1210 Saint-Josse-ten-Noode

STIB: métro 2/6 (Madou), bus 29/63/59 (Saint-Josse), bus 57 (Gutenberg)

Villo: station Place Saint-Josse

Vélo: merci d’attacher vos vélos place Saint-Josse.

Le Studio Thor est le centre du festival Trouble.

 

Contacts

info@thor.be

+32 (0)2 223 26 00

Places

Studio Thor – rue Saint-Josse 49, 1210 Saint-Josse-ten-Noode

GC Ten Noey – rue de la Commune 25, 1210 Saint-Josse-ten-Noode

Institut Européen de la Culture Arabe – rue de l’alliance 2, 1210 Saint-Josse-ten-Noode

Ateliers Mommen – rue de la Charité 37, 1210 Saint-Josse-ten-Noode

Fondations 312 – rue Royale 312, 1210 Saint-Josse-ten-Noode

Place Saint-Josse, 1210 Saint-Josse-ten-Noode

Chapelle de l’Abondance – rue de l’Abondance 25-31, 1210 Saint-Josse-ten-Noode

La Balsamine – avenue Félix Marchal 1, 1030 Schaerbeek

La Maison des Arts – chaussée de Haecht 147, 1030 Schaerbeek

KANAL (K1) – avenue du Port 1, 1000 Bruxelles

Square Marie-Louise, 1000 Bruxelles

Digue du Canal, 3 – crossroads with Dante street, 1070 Anderlecht