At the Kunstenfestivaldesarts (KFDA) in Brussels, artists have transformed global tensions and social fractures into deeply personal performances. Through dance and theatre, the festival gives voice to the silenced, turns personal trauma into collective experience, and confronts dystopia with striking artistic force.
Silence as Confinement
French dancer and choreographer Boris Charmatz presented Muette, a solo piece performed naked and without music. The lighting design sculpted his body—at times reduced to ash, at others softened—amplifying vulnerability and pain. Charmatz cited the Bétharram scandal in France, where multiple sexual abuse complaints were filed in 2025 against the Catholic school Notre-Dame de Bétharram, as inspiration. On stage, his face became performative, like a sad clown, evoking the fragility of childhood and trauma’s lasting impact into adulthood.
Dystopia in a Parking Building
Italian director Romeo Castellucci staged his performance on the top floor of a Brussels parking building, beneath a roof resembling a cathedral. Titled To Carthage Then I Came, a phrase from Saint Augustine’s Confessions, the piece features six actors whipping their wet hair over long tubes for 35 minutes. The sound echoes through the vast space, creating a dystopian atmosphere where performers appear to surrender to a superior force—possibly a Christ-like presence, as bells ring in the final moments.
Pushing Boundaries
Spanish director Angélica Liddell premiered El funeral de Mishima o el placer de morir, inspired by Japanese writer Yukio Mishima and his ritualised suicide through seppuku. The flamboyant piece pushes theatre’s boundaries, delivering a hymn to life’s untamed side. The festival’s final week also features Family Triangle by Taiwanese directors Chien-Han Hung, Wei-Yao Hung, and Ray Tseng, exploring the desire for a child through sperm donation and how cultural traditions, gender norms, and legal frameworks shape family-building. The programme describes it as examining bonds of commitment and care overlooked by law.
For more on related French issues, see French Families Sue TikTok for Algorithmic 'Abuse of Weakness' and French Rights Groups Sue Canal+ for Blacklisting Anti-Bolloré Op-Ed Signatories.
