Opening Night Body of Work 2026 - Re:pertoire

The festive opening of Body of Work 2026 - Re:pertoire.

On the opening night, you’ll fully experience what the festival stands for: how dance continues to reinvent itself in diverse and dynamic ways. After months of rehearsals, five non-professional dance groups from Dansstroom take the stage with their favorite pieces of dance repertoire. The girls from the dance performance GIRLS by fABULEUS return to the dance floor after 13 years, this time as adult women. That same evening, you can be the first to explore the exhibition in STUK Studio featuring audience memories, a video series, and podcast corners with stories from dancers.

PROGRAMME

19:00 - 20:00: Dansstroom part 1 - STUK Soetezaal
Drops of Dance & Friends / Rosa’s Goesting / Moving Ground x Huys Arts
20:00 - 20:45: Official opening - STUKcafé
21:00: GIRLS will be WOMEN will be GIRLS - STUK Studio
21:00 - 22:00: Dansstroom part 2 - STUK Soetezaal
Platform-K / Dance Images / Solemates
22:10: GIRLS will be WOMEN will be GIRLS - STUK Studio
23:00 - 01:00: Party with DJ Brahim Tall - STUKcafé

Ongoing (19:00 - 23:00)

Expo with Re:collect / Archive Stories / Body of Work podcast - STUK Studio
Documentary ‘the making of’ of Dansstroom (in loop) - Verbeeckzaal
Re:collect collection moment - STUKcafé

Dansstroom

The festival opens with a bang, the presentations of the first edition of Dansstroom, a project that builds bridges between different dance genres, between amateurs and professionals, and between the past and the present. Dansstroom invites non-professional dancers to dive into the repertoire of their own choosing. This results in an evening featuring a range of classical Indian dance, ballet, tap dance and excerpts from the work of Alain Platel and Frank Van Laeke, and Ugo Dehaes. Young and older, from Ghent to Herk-de-Stad, gathered on the stage of the Soetezaal.

More about Dansstroom

GIRLS will be WOMEN will be GIRLS - i.s.m. fABULEUS

On the occasion of the Dansstroom revival of WOMEN by Ugo Dehaes from 2011, we tracked down the GIRLS from fABULEUS. Two years after the original WOMEN, they created their ‘prequel’. Now, another 13 years later, and especially for the opening night of Body of Work 2026, the girls of yesteryear, now women, are taking to the dance floor together once again.

Exhibition Body of Work 2025 © Staf Smets

Expo met Re:collect / Archive Stories / Body of Work podcast

The exhibition in STUK Studio brings together memories and stories from dance audiences and dancers, two groups that have been underrepresented in dance history and archives. Audience memories are featured in a collective archive, ranging from tickets and posters to personal stories and drawings. In listening corners, you can hear the Body of Work podcast, where dancers share what it means to perform and pass on repertoire. In addition, Denise Luccioni guides you through fifty years of living and working in the performing arts, with new video portraits of artists such as Steve Paxton and Trisha Brown.

More about the exhibition

Re:collect collectiemoment

With Re:collect, we are building a collective archive of the audience in the STUK Studio. During the opening night, we also continue collecting! Contribute to Re:collect in the form of a tangible artefact, such as a ticket, a poster or a diary entry, or as a memory that we can record and add to our audience archive. Meet us at the collection tables in the café.

Share your memories

CREDITS DANSSTROOM

project coordination and documentation Charlotte Schramme presentation of Dansstroom showcase Anke Verschueren documentary Dansstroom Sander Tas (Kadanja) acknowledgements to all participants and their entourage! thanks to a project grant from the Cultural Heritage Decree of the Flemish Community

CREDITS GIRLS will be WOMEN will be GIRLS

dance Aster Henderieckx, Laetitia Janssens, Rune Leysen, Flo Van Genechten and Anouschka van Keulen original choreography Ugo Dehaes in collaboration with Natascha Pire production fABULEUS more info on the original GIRLS on the fABULEUS website