The 28th edition of Kunstenfestivaldesarts closes tonight with a free closing party at Théâtre National. And there is reason to party because never before could we speak of a completely sold-out festival. The public attended en masse with in total 34,500 visits, including 28,000 tickets booked for the various artistic projects and some 6500 visitors for the free activities (nightlife events, workshops and Free School activities). We welcomed a lot of international guests with artists from 28 different countries, some 200 (inter)national programmers and some 100 journalists, several of whom – for the first time again since the pandemic – came from outside Europe.

Successful premieres

The artistic quality was strong, with highly acclaimed new work by Nadia Beugré, Susanne Kennedy & Markus Selg, Amir Reza Koohestani/Mehr Theatre Group, Dana Michel, Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Claire Cunningham, Calixto Neto and Wichaya Artamat, among others.

Debuting and young makers

The audience got the chance to discover the work of young creators such as Midori Kurata, Gosia Wdowik, Alex Baczyński-Jenkins and Ça marche. Rayyane Tabet and Victoria Lomasko took their first successful steps as performers.

Belgian performing artists

The festival also presented the new creations of quite a few Belgian artists including Sarah Vanhee, Ahilan Ratnamohan, Léa Drouet and Lara Barsacq.

Special formats

Unforgettable projects included Nocturnes for a Society by Myriam Van Imschoot & Lucas van Haesbroeck in which the audience spent the night together in KANAL/K1, Αγρίμι (Fauve) by Lenio Kaklea which was played 2x at 7am in Dudenpark in addition to a hall version, the eccentric Pumpitopera Transatlantica by Brazilian collective MEXA in nightclub C12, and The School of Integration / Lexicon with which Tania Bruguera set up a temporary language school at the Festival Centre.

New venues

Besides the well-known Dutch- and French-language theatres in Brussels with which we have long collaborated, this year the festival descended for the first time on Théâtre Royal des Galeries, Mercerie, MAD Brussels and Maison poème, among others.

Some figures

28 000 tickets sold
– 1833 tickets for economically disadvantaged persons
– 396 'solidary tickets'
– 2543 tickets for -25-year-olds
+/- 6500 visitors of free activities

23 world premieres
200 international programmers
34 artistic projects
- created by 51 artists
- from 28 different countries