What happens if you don’t look away? SPOKEN is a festival that invites you to look your fears straight in the eye and discover what changes as a result. Fear can creep up on you, or rage with great intensity – it can hang over you without really taking hold, or it can suffocate you. But the moment you dare to look – to really look – something shifts. At SPOKEN, we create space for what preoccupies us, haunts us and sometimes paralyses us. So that, together, we can try to understand, share and perhaps even transform our fears. SPOKEN takes place simultaneously in Antwerp and Kortrijk.

Programme

20:00 Red Rooms

DRAMA / CRIME | Pascal Plante
2023 | CA | 1h 58m | In French with English subtitles

The high-profile case involving serial killer Ludovic Chevalier has just come to court, and model Kelly-Anne is obsessed with it. He is known as the ‘Demon of Rosemont’ and is accused of kidnapping and torturing three teenage girls in a so-called ‘red room’ – a place from urban folklore on the dark web where, it is said, live streams of snuff porn can be viewed in exchange for payment in cryptocurrency. As reality blurs and merges with her morbid fantasies, Kelly-Anne embarks on a dark path in search of the final piece of the puzzle in this case.

20:15 Yet, Light, You Are Blind / Luce Fiagan

PERFORMANCE | 50 mins

In Yet, Light, You Are Blind, Luce Fiagan draws on the work of Denise Ferreira da Silva, Fred Moten and the words of Cheikh Ath — “…everything that is unthinkable in the light may be possible in the darkness” — to explore the archetype of the shadow. The performance asks how shadows shape who we are, both individually and collectively, and how they can open up space for renewal. It invites us to view identity not as fixed or coherent, but as dynamic, fragmented and constantly in the making — particularly in relation to Black identity.

On stage, accompanied by musician Luis Ramirez Munos and lighting designer Maureen Beguin, Luce conjures up shadows and conceals them, shifting between clown, creature, spirit and child. Slam, stand-up and rap are woven together into a restless stream of forms and styles — a body with its shadows, endlessly collapsing, rearranging itself and refusing to be fixed in a definitive form.

21:15 Huiverhuis

LITERARY HAUNTED HOUSE | Budascoop, various venues

Especially for SPOKEN, twelve literary creators (six in Antwerp and six in Kortrijk) are crafting a terrifying alter ego. A witch, a Berber woman, a modern Faust, a queen bee… Together, they find refuge in the HuiverHuis, a literary haunted house where visitors get eerily close to the action. A blend of recitation, performance and theatre. At the HuiverHuis in Kortrijk, you can visit Jeroen Olyslaegers, Uschi Cop, Hans Depelchin, Lotte Lola Vermeer, Maaike Neuville and Martijn Verhelst.

The Huiverhuis will be opened by Ilona Lodewijckx and Letterzetter. Ilona worked alongside collective members Bart Vanhee, Emma De Poortere and Kato Vancraeynest to develop a poetic performance for SPOKEN.

21:45 Mooni Van Tichel

PERFORMANCE | 10 mins | Budascoop entry

Mooni Van Tichel is creating a short performance for SPOKEN with dancer Manon Kanjinga Janssen. This performance will bring together a number of movement elements, each based on how fear and the current political climate take root in our bodies and in our relationships with one another. They do not start from a presumed ease in relating to one another (as is sometimes the case in contemporary dance), but rather from the difficulties that can arise with proximity (due to power dynamics, each person’s lived experience, and fears).

22:15 Kimme Tigra

WORD | 10 mins | Budascoop entry

Kimme Tigra created a podcast for the HuiverHuis: a Gen Z ghost story about fear, trauma and living in a haunted house. Kimme Tigra writes very short stories that are usually about cats, serial killers or her childhood. Sometimes about all three at once. Her collection ‘Proza(c) en gezelschapsdieren’ was published in 2022 by Fluxenberg.

22:45 De Stroate

WORD | 10 mins | Budascoop entry

Young people from their community will send shivers down your spine through their own artistic disciplines. Expect dance, slam, singing and rap that never shy away from their own fears.

Practical information

A day ticket costs €15 (standard) / €12 (young people) / €3 (concession) / CUBO. This allows you to choose between the film or the performance on the day.
Visits to the HuiverHuis are limited. To guarantee your place at the performances, please book a time slot at the entrance. So be sure to arrive early! A maximum of two bookings per person.

_{SPOKEN is a festival organised by VONK & Zonen and Kortrijk Library, in collaboration with BUDA arts centre, Blikfabriek, Curieus, Creatief Schrijven, De Cinema and De Groene Waterman.
With the support of Literatuur Vlaanderen and the Flemish Government.}