© Joeri Thiry / STUK
Adia Vanheerentals & Briana Ashley Stuart — Blind date
Jazz saxophonist Adia Vanheerentals and ‘stepping’ artist Briana Ashley Stuart set STUKcafé on fire with their rhythm and energy.
➤ STUKcafé
➤ We 8 Oct 20:00 & 21:30 (30’)
Part of the TakeOff UUR KULTUUR 2025.
Jazz saxophonist Adia Vanheerentals and ‘stepping’ artist Briana Ashley Stuart set STUK Café on fire with rhythm and energy. What stories unfold when a percussive dancer’s rhythms and movement intertwine with the voice and melody of a saxophone?
Vanheerentals and Stuart met earlier this year at STUK in the frame of the Body of Work festival. This energetic Blind date is the result of their artistic encounter and a short studio session together.
As a saxophonist, Adia Vanheerentals enjoys working in a variety of contexts. In recent years, she has formed jazz and improvisation bands such as Bodem, Waarlijk, and Vanheerentals/Beeckaert/Lasure, each challenging the audience's experience. Bodem is set to release a second album soon, followed by a tour across Flanders and Brussels. Additionally, Vanheerentals performs in Femke Gyselinck and Platform-K's dance production Change of Plans and collaborates as a side musician in bands like Klinck Trio, Fanfaar Fatal, Jazz Ellendelingen, and Anais Vijgen Quintet. Recently, she has also been exploring improvised solo work, where whimsical melodies intertwine with decelerating breaths, as showcased on the album Here Are 5 Reasons to Meditate, released by Ultra Eczema.
Originally from Detroit (United States of America), Briana Ashley Stuart is a performing artist, dancer, choreographer and dance entrepreneur based in Brussels. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a BFA in dance and a BA in sociology. She has worked internationally as an independent artist and with a number of companies and artists, including StepAfrika!, SJEwing & Dancers, ZIKIT, 4Hoog kindertheater, Lila Magnin, Alexis Blake, Gorges Ocloo. Moving Meditations (2023) was the first step in her research into percussive dance and movement and sound in space. In her artistic work, she is interested in audience interaction, philosophy and the potential of the human body as an instrument of rhythm and expression. More about her artistic interests and works can be seen in her introspective dance lecture Stepping: Freedom in Form produced by BOZAR in Brussels, and her dance lecture How to Unveil the Secret Power of Movement and Sound to Create at TEDxBrussels in 2023.
