🔮 BIENNALE 2021 🔮

We have devised this Biennale as a gesture of reunion after all these months spent without any contact at all.
So many shows that will have had their premieres delayed, so many artists who will have valiantly gone back to work in their studios, awaiting their return to theatres and an opportunity – at last! – to reunite with audiences. This will have been our day-to-day life for months, far too long, a time when we’ve dreamt of meeting up again, with everyone belting out Dalida’s song “Let me dance tonight …” on Place Sainte-Catherine in Brussels. I’m mixing up tenses as I write: future and past mark the delays that govern (have governed?) everything we’ve been doing since the start of the pandemic.

We did hold some events outdoors, welcomed people if we were allowed, and on occasion worked round all these obligations and recommendations that weighed so heavily on us. But we never stopped imagining a dance season for the public or opening it with this Biennale that is so close to the hearts of the people of Charleroi. It was never our intention to organise the event around themes; instead we’ve opted for a simple arrangement: an opening event and then putting the artists front and centre: those from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation and, alongside them, major names on the international scene.

This year’s edition remains faithful to this “principle”, with added mystery around the effect such a lengthy isolation will have on the works. When you’ve been involved for some time in organising programmes, you know that the coherence of an event mostly becomes apparent later on, once the names have been put together, the arguments of the pieces have been made, and the running order has been agreed. This if often when the main thrust of an event becomes apparent, building and unifying.

“We’re told that we love, but not how we love” said one of the artists featuring in this year’s Biennale. This could be one approach to these reunions that we hope will be harmonious and, why not, bring joy. A reminder of the power of life and the power of dance.