Feral is a highlight of Cifas’ programme. It is a festival that reflects on today’s urgent political and social issues, and how artists take them into their hands. It is a programme of artistic interventions and encounters that uses art to influence everyday life in Brussels. Feral can take place on a boat, at the abattoirs, in a shop or at a carnival. Feral is urban, interstitial, peripheral and feral.

Feral is all about performing art in the city and in its fringes, is questions the commons and their rough edges, urbanity, rurality, the landscape and intimacy.

This year, Feral festival will take place on 12-13-14 September at La Fonderie in Molenbeek, at La Bellone and along the canal.

Editorial

Today, so many artists have recourse to rituals in their practice. Whether they are rituals of care, healing or passage, or rituals for transformation, struggle and alliances (one thinks, of course, of the insurgent lakes), they all have in common that they offer the audience other pacts of connection and participation, where stage performances may mark their limits.

What do rituals do to art? ↔  What does art do to rituals?

Why do we need formats that bring us together in new and different ways? What does this say about our society? Its fears? About its mobilisation?

We invite you to wander through this journey together with a fine-tuned and witty combination of artists, activists, researchers. Together, we will be sharing stories, analyses and experiences.

We will follow a timeline that doesn’t separate us,

We will ask ourselves if rituals are a tool for countering the disenchantment of the world,

We will celebrate the earth,

We will question the transition from the intimate to the public sphere,

We will ask ourselves who has the right to change traditions and folklore,

We will find tools for action and social justice,

We will imagine new ways of welcoming newcomers,

We will call magic,

We may not always agree,

We will unbewitch,

We will set up a fire,

We will eat soft bread sandwiches,

We will play the flute,

We may not always agree.

And if we had to invent an artistic ritual for the city, what would it be?

Registrations

Feral is free, on registration.

Registrations are now closed.

Venues

La Bellone

is a place for research and reflection, dedicated to creative processes, a tool for stage artists and all those interested in the creation of theatrical scripts.

Rue de Flandre 46

1000 Brussels

La Fonderie

valorise le patrimoine architectural, matériel et immatériel du secteur industriel bruxellois. Installée sur le site de l’ancienne Compagnie des Bronzes à Molenbeek, elle est aujourd’hui un lieu de médiations diverses du passé industriel de la ville, tout en étant un acteur de redynamisation sociale et urbaine.

Rue Ransfort 27

1080 Molenbeek-Saint-Jean

The canal

We will explore the shores of the canal, from the North of Brussels to Molenbeek.

Practical information

Languages

Discussions will be in English and in French with simultaneous translation. Performances will be in their original language. Workshops will be facilitated by bilingual people if needed.

Catering

The 12 and 13/09 we will serve a pay what you can vegetarian lunch (please bring cash!). Please let us know if you will have lunch with us when you register.

Don't forget your water bottles

Let's try and make washing up as minimal as possible.

Workshop - Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination

10 & 11 September

As an intoduction to Feral, Isa Frémeaux & Jay Jordan of the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination will give a workshop on Magick desobedience. During two days they will explore the use of rituals and magic as tools for radical social movements fighting petro-patriarchal-colonial capitalism with the participants.

Deadline to apply : 1 September, midnight CET

To know more → this way

Team

Marine Thévenet - Artistic and general direction

Anna Czapski - Texts and dramaturgy

Emmanuelle Nizou - Dramaturgy and documentation

Charlotte David - Production and coordination

Beth Gordon - Communication

Camille d'Aboville - Production assistant

Juliette Framorando - Production

Raphael Noel - Technical direction

Flore Herman - Coordination Revue Feral 

Dancing Words - Translation

Apus et les Cocottes volantes - Catering 

Bea Borgers - Photography

Lucie Caouder - Graphic design

Credits

Feral is organised by Cifas, in partnership with La Bellone, La Fonderie, Librairie Météores and Culture et Démocratie.

Cifas is supported by Cocof, FWB and Actiris.

Feral is supported by the City of Brussels and WBI.

MolenFest

Alongside Feral, from September 12 to 22, MolenFest will take place: a program featuring dance, circus, theater, discussions, and cinema, held at the communal square, in the Maritime Quarter, Manchester Street, Ninove Park, and along the canal to explore how Brussels can become an inclusive and diverse European capital of culture by 2030.

→ the programme is online here