WIPCOOP: Work in Progress Mestizo Arts Platform

Anne Kuit, Nadia El Hassanat, Isil Biçakçi en David Labi each show a maximum of thirty minutes of their WORK IN PROGRESS. Followed by a conversation with a group of dramaturges, workshops, producers and programmers about the work shown and possible support. During these breaks, other artists talk about new work, new initiatives or projects in Artist Talks  with the audience.

WIPCOOP - the Work In Progress Cooperative of Mestizo Arts Platform - is an all year round developmental track in Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent and Mechelen. Its main goal? Making new artistic work visible from the power of the cooperative, setting up a dialogue around this and matching artists and organizations to be able to further develop and play this work when finished.  

The Work In Progress takes place during the day and is for free.

DISCOVER THE ARTISTS AND THEIR WORK

Anne Kuit's LEO  is a nuanced-activist solo performance about what it means to go on a quest for your own gender identity; a journey that takes one past the alga announcing the beginning of life on earth to the gender-affirming shop around the corner. But LEO is above all: an invitation to celebrate that quest. Because if there is one thing Anne Kuit notes during their own journey: despite the fact that deviating from the gender norm brings its share of bumps, it is above all a celebration of discovering who you all can be and already are. Through personal stories, philosophical considerations, social reflections and dragging acts, Anne Kuit and LEO arrive at a theatrical plea for more queer-joy and gender euphoria.

TEGENWOORDIG  by Nadia Alhassanat is a monodrama about solidarity and migration. Mariam leaves her homeland, leaving behind the war in which she lost both her parents. Among the remains of her ruined house stands her bath, symbolising the grave in which she buries her disappeared parents. Her bath, symbolising the boat that took her to Belgium. Her bath, the place where she hides from people who exploit her under the guise of solidarity. With this story about Mariam, Nadia Alhassanat takes a closer look at the term 'Solidarity'. TEGENWOORDIG is a call for more empathy, not pity.

CAGE-FREE / Isil Biçakçi This is not a vegetarian manifesto, neither is Isil Bicakci advocating the consumption of poultry. Drawing inspiration from the life of a chicken, this Turkish native finds some striking similarities between humanity and its feathered friends and as the performance progresses, she brings various questions to the minds in a light-hearted way.

CAGE-FREE is an interactive conceptual performance that starts with casual questions, information, and observations about the life of a chicken. Gently, the performance leads us into a reflection on our own behaviour in society. Slowly it becomes clear that the environment we have created for chickens actually applies to us too. Just as chickens are our slaves, caged and pressurised to perform, we are equally slaves to our own system.

With appropriate humour, Isil puts her finger on the wound. Every 24 hours, we lay our metaphorical egg. If we don't do this if we don't produce, perform or comply ... society rejects us.

Even in a global pandemic when we all transformed into figurative headless chickens top performance was still expected. Sound familiar?

PIECES OF A MAN  by David Labi is an (auto)biographical monologue about David Labi's late father, Marcello: a Libyan Jew who survived Bergen-Belsen concentration camp as a child, grew up in Israel and later settled in London. Marcello brought lifelong wonder, madness, joy and pain to those around him. PIECES OF A MAN delves into shifting pasts and a parallel present with photographs, clips of Marcello's testimony about the Holocaust, anecdotes about soldiers, gangsters and casinos... and five precious objects, which David somehow lost.

DISCOVER THE PROGRAM

10:00 – 10:30 // CAGE - FREE / Işil Biçakçi

10:30 – 11:30 // Artist Talks

11:30 - 12:00 // LEO  by Anne Kuit

12:00 - 13:30 // Artist Talks & Lunch

13:30 - 14:00 // PIECES OF A MAN  by David Labi 

14:00 - 15:00 // Artist Talks

15:00 - 15:30 // TEGENWOORDIG  by Nadia Alhassanat

Work In Progress is free, reception from 09:30 - no registration required

WIPCOOP unearths the artistic talent brewing in our cities. The Work In Progress days are an extremely suitable momentum for the art sector as well as the public to discover and follow artists who are developing plenty of new work and burning topical themes.

WIPCOOP is an all-year round development track in Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Mechelen and Leuven that supports a total of 20 artists every year. Its main goal? To make new artistic work visible from the strength of the cooperative, from a thousand and one traditions, to set up dialogue around it and to match artists and organisations in order to further develop and perform this work.

Through its operation, Mestizo Arts Platform creates a safe and sustainable breeding ground for young, new artists, under professional guidance and outside the school route. That this does produce results is proven by the long list of WIPCOOP participants who have since grown into established names. Just think of Junior Mthombeni, Sachli Gholamalizad, Aminata Demba, Aïcha Cissé, Pitcho Womba Konga, Les Mybalés, Roland Gunst, Luanda Casella and Karim Kalonji.