‘The international selection’

With The International Selection BOZAR, the KVS and the National Theatre are bringing some of the best international productions to Brussels. Pioneering theatre practitioners will be setting to work with new or classical texts and touching on subjects such as Europe and the world today.

The 2015-2016 season at the Centre for Fine Arts will be a happy reunion with familiar names such as the young Georgian talent Data Tavadze (Women of Troy in 2014) and the Lithuanian Oskaras Korsnuvas (Hamlet in 2013). In 2013 the Iranian Mahin Sadri was also on stage at BOZAR with Amir Reza Koohestani’s Ivanov. And don’t forget to look out for the Fin Jari Juutinen; just like the Egyptian Ahmed El Attar he is one of the most significant representatives of independent theatre. Juutinen is directing a text by his compatriot Kristian Smeds. With their radical native and innovative theatrical language these artists are beginning to attract attention at all the major international theatre festivals and often find themselves amongst the winners.

In all the productions the emphasis is placed on the intimate or personal as a means of broaching broader social themes. The characters represent conflicting social classes, generations, political or artistic convictions. They talk at cross purposes thus demonstrating their inability to find a connection. This emphasises their isolation, a sometimes never-ending feeling of existential solitude. For these dramatists the West equals disillusionment and jaded ideals. Outside Europe the situation isn’t much better. Yet here and there we see a glimmer of hope.