TakeOff UUR KULTUUR

Ready for take off? KU Leuven kicks off your cultural year with a smashing night in STUK arts centre. You set the course and choose your own adventure (though you definitely shouldn’t skip the free apero). Discover why STUFF. is considered Belgium’s best live band. Or do you rather fancy Subsobrino’s cocktail of colorful samples, hip hop beats and South-American rhythms? The stunning footwork of granvat will amaze you, while the renowned visual artist Helen Cammock is a source of inspiration. Dolly Bing Bing’s futuristic show in its turn is, well, in a league of its own. Did you reach new heights? We close the night in cloud nine at an afterparty with DTM Funk in STUKcafé.

Susobrino (concert)

Colorful samples, flamenco guitar and South American rhythms: promising multi-instrumentalist and producer presents his new EP.

➤ 20:00 (30’)
➤ STUK Labozaal

Belgian-Bolivian musician & producer Susobrino mixes colourful electronics and hip hop beats with South American rhythms and traditional instruments. His danceable live sets blend claps and bass with live percussion and flamenco tunes. His new EP is set for release on the Kebrada label of Dengue Dengue Dengue. ¡Vamos!

STUFF. (concert)

Discover why the five-piece collective STUFF. is considered Belgium’s best live band.

➤ 21:00 (90’)

➤ STUK Labozaal
The five-piece collective STUFF. has become such a household name on the Belgian music scene that they have become synonymous with a musical genre: instrumental grooves with leapfrog rhythms, futuristic bleeping, fat bass lines and repetitive melodic patterns. Or as the leading magazine Jazz Standard puts it, "If an energy drink could make music, it would sound like STUFF." Live, this bunch of misfits is truly bursting with energy as they unfold their compositions through long improvisations, rousing crescendos and intimate jams. It is no coincidence that they are one of the country's best live bands, trained as they are by their shitload of other music projects.

After their self-titled 2015 debut album, they released their second release, Old Dreams, New Planets, in 2017. Now there is T(h)reats, the third record that took a little longer to release due to a mutated virus. The title speaks for itself: art and music posed a threat, so to speak, during these uncertain covid times. Yet despite everything, STUFF. remains true to their primal DNA, shaped by improvisations and jams: “After hours of talking, philosophizing and fantasizing about what the new approach of the record could be, nothing concrete came up. Then we just started making music to see where we’d end up like we’ve always done. As a result, in this day and age, with this group of people … this is what happened.”

Dolly Bing Bing (concert)

Alien popstar, queer performer, cybersexual phantasy: meet Dolly BIng Bing

➤ 23:00 (35’)
➤ STUKcafé

Performance artist and singer Dolly Bing Bing is a phenomenon: she is a glamorous alien popstar, a queer performer, a cybersex fantasy. In short, a ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ that can't be captured in any category. She brings futuristic R&B and hyperpop with trippy melodies. She raps, sings, dances and vogues. As fearless as she is vulnerable, she breaks through prevailing ideas around sexuality and gender. For fans of Fka Twigs, Arca, Mykki Blanco and David Bowie.

Granvat / Bert & Stijn Cools - Come On Feet (performance)

An encounter between footwork house and contemporary dance.

➤ 20:00 & 22:30 (60’)
➤ STUK Soetezaal

Come On Feet grew out of the fascination of the brothers Bert and Stijn Cools (granvat) for electronic dance music (EDM). Footwork, a subgenre that arose from Chicago’s street culture, serves as the starting point and source of inspiration for the brothers’ soundtrack. Through improvisations they dissect and rebuild the genre on synth guitar and electronic drum. Typically, intricate dance moves focusing on - yes, you guessed it - the feet, accompany the high-paced rhythms of the music. Five dancers, and choreographer Quan Bui Ngoc (a.o. Les Ballets C de la B), enter into dialogue with the live club music by the brothers, combining the power and improvisation of the footwork with the suppleness and techniques of contemporary dance. The first time that this underground battle dance will be kneaded into a dance performance!

Helen Cammock - Beneath the surface of skin (expo)

British artist and 2019 Turner Prize winner Helen Cammock interweaves autobiography with astute sociopolitical observation in her first solo exhibition in Belgium.

➤ 18:00-23:00 (ongoing expo)
➤ STUK Expozaal

In Beneath the surface of Skin, 2019 Turner prize winner Helen Cammock presents two recent bodies of work: Che si può fare explores the power of women’s laments and their potential to act as expressions of survival, resilience, and hope. The work was created during a six-month journey across Italy, during which Cammock collected songs, stories and testimonies from performers, activists, artists, politicians, historians, migrants and refugees. The result is a transhistorical, international, contemporary lament of its own, voiced by women across centuries and geographies. In this solo exhibition in STUK, it is followed by the mesmerizing audiovisual essay They Call it Idlewild. Supported by a gentle stream of slowly moving images, Cammock’s voice muses on the concept of idleness, the politics of laziness, and purposelessness as a form of privilege. Two billboards each proposing a question are presented at the entrance and inner courtyard of STUK. They frame They Call it Idlewild, and by extension the entire exhibition in which Cammock manifests once again her particular ability to condense complex thought into moments of keen clarity.

Jan Duerinck - Support as Supposed (expo)

Visual artist Jan Duerinck shares his fascination for pins in his solo exhibition.

➤ 18:00-23:00 (ongoing expo)
➤ STUKcafé & STUK Onthaal

When an object carries experience; Jan Duerinck mediates meaning in different materialities. When objects are stripped of their obvious functionality, they ask to be placed in context anew. Banality thus becomes the subject of reflection. Nothing just is, or is only what it is. In his solo exhibition in STUK, he zooms in on pins.

Sweet Thing (film)

Sweet Thing is an intimate and playful film, filled with poetic images. Three teenagers leave their dysfunctional family behind and go on an adventure.

➤ CINEMA ZED STUK
➤ 20:00 (90’)
➤ 22:00 (90’)

Sweet Thing is an intimate and special film. Billie and Nico are teenagers and lead an idyllic, though improvised life. They live with their father Adam. He’s a kind soul with a big heart, but drowns in tears and guilt, each time he’s tempted by alcohol. Their eccentric mother left years ago.

Everything changes this summer. When Adam finally goes into rehab, the children go on an adventure. Together with their new friend Malik, they go looking for his father in Florida.

Director Alexandre Rockwell turns this tragic story into an energetic and playful film. You look at the world through Billie’s and Nico’s eyes: full of fantasy and magic. Alexandre shot Sweet Thing mostly in poetic black-and-white. He asked his owned children to play the main characters.

Afterparty with DTM Funk

Steamy afterparty in STUKcafé with Antwerp's grooviest DJ.

➤ 23:40-03:00
➤ STUKcafé

Antwerp-based DTM Funk is DJ, curator and founder of the San-Kofa Rhythms label. His steamy sets are not tied to musical genres, but instead explore three basic elements: soul, groove and rhythm. Expect an irresistible and timeless selection of music that is guaranteed to set STUKcafé on fire.

Introduction to the expos of Helen Cammock & Jan Duerinck

The STUK team will give you an introduction to Helen Cammock's and Jan Duerinck's exhibitions.

➤ 19:00, 20:00, 21:00 & 22:00 (15’)
➤ Expozaal & STUKcafé