Brigittines Summer Festival keeps surprising us for at least 40 years! It’s in the name now, because it’s a “Playhouse for Movement”! We have a slight change of its name: until this year it was Brigittines International Festival and was coinciding with The Brussels Dance Festival! This year too! But next year it will be a different time: the festival will take place in June-June!
Brussels Dance Festival happens at different podiums around the city center, which is the City Hall of Brussels (where dance shows will be given as from the 19th of August onwards) with a beautiful name: “Heritage in Motion”! The others are: Place Brouckere, The Stock Exchange and De Munt/La Monnaie Theater! All of them are open to the public! But here I would like to pay a special tribute here to my favorite dance festival at the Brigittines Chapel and highlight all the changes happening here!
Charles Vairet, the new director of the festival, and Yelena van Kharitonova, journalist at Culturius © photo Yelena van Kharitonova
I met previous year (look at my article from one year ago) the New Director of it; Charles Vairet (who was assuming responsibilities then, while replacing the old one and I was impressed by his visionary approach and now he has been implementing it and the results of it are visible! Charles has changed not only the dates of our beloved annual Chapel’s dance gatherings ( I am saying it because this year it is my 15th edition, as far as I remember myself)! He has changed the structure, the frequency of the events and the approach of how these events would be organized during the year along!
Brigittines Summer Festival © photo Yelena van Kharitonova
Charles arrived from Paris with an impressive background from the same “dance” field! But nowadays he has a special mission to make out of Les Brigittines not only the place for events, but become an epicenter for change-making: in the Marolles, in Brussels, in Belgium and in Europe! He has ambitions to change the area, which connects the building with the local skateboarding community and the skating activities, which have being happening just around the corner from Les Brigittines! This way even younger audiences will be involved! This year there are three performances, which are performed outside and free of charge for all! They happen on the back of the Chapel, so everyone can come and enjoy the happenings! Of course with the traditional afterparty at the end of the festival on the 29th of August!
Filipe Lourenco, the choregrapher, and Yelena van Kharitonova, journalist at Culturius © photo Yelena van Kharitonova
Charles keeps all the wonderful traditions of the Festival alive and well, including Invitations oc international (mostly European) performers who are “covering” burning topics at stake in theirs dances on the stage: from combination of ethnography and modernity in dance, from topics of death and lost memories, from feminism issues to being lost in glamorous daily routine to treating yourself with a Seville-inspired parade and enjoying life to its fullest! The program of this year’s edition is so varied with 23 pieces to perform during 10 evenings! So, the Brigittines Summer Festival takes place from the 14th until the 29th of August 2026!
