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Jan Fabre brings 'Belgian Rules' to Russia

By REUTERS
October 20, 2017

Famous artist Jan Fabre brings his fresh show "Belgian Rules/Belgium Rules" to Moscow - his Antwerp theater's first gig in Russia since 2009.

 "I'm making a kind of a critical love declaration to my country. Belgium is like Russia," Fabre said. "We are world powers. We are bigger than China, bigger than Russia, bigger than America. No, it's not true. We are so small. So 'Belgium Rules' is quite ironical, because we never historically had any militaristic power, any economical power."

A four-hour performance balances between acute satire and tender sentiment and takes the audience on an ironic tour through the author's motherland. Sparkles and glitter hail on pompous plumes of carnival dresses as dancers in wooden clogs tap the rhythm of a Belgian fiesta.

"Belgian Rules/Belgium Rules" includes Belgian specialties like its beer, chocolate, bicycles and smoking pipes to grotesque masquerade, exposing all the vices of Belgian society and questioning its rules. "My aim as an artist is to evoke the minds of spectators, to make spectators feel and think in a different way," Fabre said.

"But this is never in the working process - oh, we're gonna shock or provoke people. Never." The performance is interlaced with elegant living pictures reminiscent of the works of the country's famous painters. "Don't forget - we are a country that created oil painting," Fabre said proudly ahead of his show that pays homage to Hieronymus Bosch's "Ship of Fools" painting, Pieter Bruegel's snowy fields and the misty lands of Rene Magritte.

"Belgian Rules/Belgium Rules" was brought to Russia by the Territory festival - a platform which has promoted modern theater in Russia since 2005.