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april 15, 2015 \ newsweekly - € 0,75 \ read more at www.flanderstoday.eu current affairs \ p2

politics \ p4

On a mission

Flanders and the Netherlands’ first joint trade mission will find politicians and industry leaders in Ghana and Senegal next month \6

BUSiNESS \ p6

Under the sea

A stunning new aquarium with a huge diversity of salt and freshwater fish and colourful reefs is open at Antwerp Zoo \ 10

innovation \ p7

education \ p9

art & living \ p10

I’m not a number

Mechelen’s Dossin museum and Fort Breendonk host a double exhibition that introduces visitors to Belgium’s Holocaust survivors \ 11

The place to beer Leuven celebrates its role within the world’s most diverse beer-producing region Alan Hope More articles by Alan \ flanderstoday.eu

Consider the Leuven Beer Weekend the city’s claim to the title of Flanders’ beer capital. For several weeks, both the historic capital city and the province of Flemish Brabant are the backdrop to a bustling, wide-ranging programme of beer and brewing events the likes of which we’ve not seen before.

L

© Courtesy Visit Leuven

euven can rightly consider itself a beer city, if only by virtue of being the home of the world’s largest brewer, AB InBev. But, beginning on the last weekend of April, the city aims to transform itself into a beer capital or, to use the official slogan, “the place to beer”.

A month of beer-related activities in and around Leuven will be bracketed by two major beer festivals. “The brewing tradition is alive here in Flemish Brabant unlike anywhere else in the world,” states provincial deputy Monique Swinnen. “From geuze to witbier, from pils to Special Belge – where else than in Flemish Brabant can you find such a diversity of beers and breweries?”

The month of events kicks off on 24 April with the Leuven Beer Weekend, which includes the Zythos Beer Festival. The weekend starts with Beer Talks in the STUK arts centre. Beer sommelier Luc De Raedemaeker, the man behind the Brussels Beer Challenge, presents talks by three beer experts: Ghent University professor Denis De Keukeleire, a world authority on hops; brewer Yvan De Baets of Brasserie de la Senne, one of Brussels’ two local breweries; and Lorenzo Da Bove, a craft brewer from Italy, one of the world’s most vibrant and innovative new beer markets.

The talks are in English, and entry is €20, but that’s offset by some beer and snack pairings prepared by Koen Tossyn of Leuven restaurant Luzine, formerly the home base of TV chef Jeroen Meus.

The Beer Weekend also includes brewery visits. You can, for instance, join a two-hour visit at AB InBev that includes a beer-pouring course on Saturday and Sunday. The guided tours are offered both in Dutch and English and cost €8.50.

The other breweries offering visits are smaller and more artisanal, and each has its own character. They include Domus in the city centre, Hof Ten Dormaal in Tildonk, De Vlier in Holsbeek and De Kroon in Neerijse.

Other features of the Beer Weekend include special beer menus at nine of the city’s top restaurants, an exhibition of small and medium-sized breweries in Flemish Brabant as well as pub tours. Also on the menu: bike visits to Hof Ten continued on page 5

\ CURRENT AFFAIRS

Climate change plan for coast Flooding De Panne and Nieuwpoort among proposals for future of Flemish coast Derek Blyth More articles by Derek \ flanderstoday.eu

T

he coastline between De Panne and Ostend could be flooded by the year 2100 in response to rising sea levels, according to a report by a team of Flemish architects.

This radical scenario is the most extreme of four options proposed in a study called Metropolitan Coastline 2100.

The aim of the report was to suggest solutions to the predicted one-metre rise in the sea level caused by climate change. The report, which set out to “maximise the quality of life in the regions affected”, was drawn up by architects working with the Flemish departments of urban planning and public works and the maritime services division.

The most controversial plan – known as the Bipole scenario – would abandon the entire western coastal zone to the sea.

“There would no longer be any active investment in keeping out the sea or in urban development or the economy,” the report said. “The western coast would be progressively

© Luna04/Wikimedia Commons

de-urbanised and restored to its natural state.”

The resorts of De Panne (pictured), Koksijde, Oostduinkerke, Nieuwpoort and Middelkerke would gradually disappear into

the sea under that plan. “This looks like a boycott of the Westhoek,” said Ann Vanheste, mayor of De Panne. The governor of West Flanders province, Carl Decaluwe, was also against the plan to flood large areas. “The answer is to claim land from the sea,” he told De Morgen.

The Zone scenario, meanwhile, would involve the construction of a defence wall along the entire coastline, with new pipes to carry excess sea water inland to polder land. The third option – the Archipelago – would leave the coast untouched while using large inland areas of undeveloped polder as catchment areas for flood water. And finally, the Mosaic scenario involves the construction of an elaborate network of canals to manage the water.

“We have to do something to allow nature to absorb the sea water,” said Joachim Declerck, one of the architects involved in compiling the report. “We can’t just keep on building.”

New York street to be named after Father Damien A Flemish government initiative will see a street in New York named after the 19th-century priest Joseph de Veuster, better known as Father Damien, who is venerated as a saint for his work in Hawaii’s leper colony.

Born in Tremelo, Flemish Brabant, in 1840, Father Damien is famous for having built a school, medical clinic and fully functioning communities out of the dilapidated infrastructure that was housing people suffering from leprosy. A peninsula on the Hawaiian island of Moloka’i was home to hundreds with the disease in the 19th and into the 20th century. Father Damien (pictured) died of leprosy on Moloka’i aged 49 and was canonised in 2009.

Flemish minister-president Geert Bourgeois

will officially inaugurate Father Damien Way on 11 May, the day after St Damien’s feast day. The street name is an initiative of the Flemish government, in collaboration with the Archdiocese of New York and the New York City Council.

East 33rd Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue in the Murray Hill area of Manhattan is becoming Father Damien Way, which is located near three major hospitals. One of them is Bellevue Hospital Center, one of the few hospitals in the country’s east coast region that specialises in the treatment of leprosy.

Statues of Father Damien are already present at the US Capitol building in Washington DC and in front of Hawaii’s State Senate building in Honolulu. Tremelo, meanwhile, main-

Four in 10 Brussels residents annoyed by noise

tains a Damien Museum, and Leuven, where the priest is buried, runs the Damien documentation and information centre.

Invest road-toll income in roadworks, federation demands The government should invest the income it receives from a new road toll in new roads and in maintenance, according to the three regional Construction Federations in a joint statement.

The toll comes into force next year and applies to vehicles heavier than 3.5 tonnes.

The measure has provoked protests from the retail sector as well as the transport industry. According to the construction industry, the money raised should be reinvested in the upkeep of existing roads and the construction of new roads.

Last week motoring organisation Touring

© Courtesy MPD01605/Wikimedia

warned that, at current rates of advance, the “missing links” in the country’s road

4,720

2,289

calls to motoring organisation Touring during the first week of the Easter holiday because of car trouble – 14% more than last year and the highest number in five years

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network will only be completed in 2070.

Touring drew up a list of weak spots, including tunnels under Schumanplein in Brussels and Ter Kamerenbos, the Brussels Ring, the A8 in Halle, the A12 Brussels-Antwerp and the Oosterweel connection in Antwerp.

In 2002, a list of 201 of these spots was released, and 37 projects have since been completed. “There’s a lot of work to be done,” commented Touring spokesperson Danny Smagghe. “With 162 missing links to go at a rate of three a year, we’ll get there by 2070.”

Flanders accounts for 63 of the missing links and Brussels for 16. \ Alan Hope

About 40% of people living in the Brussels-Capital Region complain about noise nuisance at home, according to the Health Survey 2013 by the Scientific Institute for Public Health, which questioned about 3,000 people.

Noise is the main factor in the category of environmental factors that disturb people at home. “People are not just annoyed by the noise of traffic,” Rana Charafeddine, co-author of the report, told Brusselnieuws.be.

“The survey shows that noise made by neighbours is often also very disturbing.” Residents also complained about vibrations (almost 20%), air pollution (more than 15%) and bad smells (more than 10%) making life at home less pleasant.

The main problem for inhabitants in their broader living environment is the amount of rubbish in the streets: 27% of respondents complained about this issue. The amount of traffic also disturbs about a quarter of people. Other major causes of annoyance are vandalism and the speed of traffic.

The Flemish ombudsman’s annual report recently showed that noise is also a big cause of annoyance in Flanders, with one in four people living in Flanders disturbed at night by traffic noise. \ Andy Furniere

commercially available breathalyzers are unreliable, according to tests on 24 models carried out by the Belgian Institute for Road Safety

calls to the Taaltelefoon, the Flemish government’s language advice hotline, in 2014, down from 5,005 the year before. Inquiries are also accepted via the websites taaltelefoon.be and taaladvies.net

2,175

income generated so far from tourism to the Westhoek area of West Flanders associated with the centenary of the start of the First World War. Two-thirds came from foreign tourists

cases of graffiti on trains in 2014, twice as many as in 2010, at a cost of €2.5 million to the rail authority NMBS. The new Desiro rolling stock is a particular target

april 15, 2015

WEEK in brief Alexander Kristoff became the first Norwegian to win the Tour of Flanders bike race on Easter Sunday, just three days after he won the Three-Day De Panne-Koksijde. For the Tour, Kristoff held off Dutchman Niki Terpstra in a two-man sprint finish after a brutal 264 kilometres. Lokeren’s Greg Van Avermaet of BMC, who came second last year, took third place, seven seconds behind Kristoff. Kristoff then went on to win Flanders’ Scheldeprijs race on 8 April.

The government of Flanders has decided to keep the post of bouwmeester, or master architect, according to an internal government document, De Standaard reported last week.

Peter Swinnen was the region’s official architect from 2010 until earlier this year, when the government said the post would be vacated and the responsibilities taken over by an advisory board of experts. The advisory board concept will be kept and be under the authority of the new master architect.

A deposit on drinks cans and bottles could reduce the mountain of rubbish picked up along the roads of Flanders by 5,600 tonnes a year, according to figures from a study carried out for Flemish environment minister Joke Schauvliege. The study finds that the introduction of a deposit of 10c to 50c would not involve high costs as critics have claimed, and clean-up costs would be cut by €16 million.

The deposit would require new machines to allow shoppers to reclaim their deposit.

Legal experts have repeated calls for a change to the law on sexual abuse in Belgium, after an Antwerp appeal court last week said that a basketball coach who secretly filmed girls in the shower over the course of two years had committed no offence. Belgian law states that an offense is committed in

face of flanders the case of “sexual assault with violence or threat of violence” but that there was no violence or threat since the victims – both minors and legal adults – were unaware of the recordings.

Cod stocks in the North Sea will be biologically sound in five years if current rates of recovery are maintained, according to the Institute for Agriculture and Fisheries Research.

Last year stocks stood at 68,000 tonnes, up from 21,000 tonnes in 2006. Measures to preserve stocks, such as strict quotas and the closing of some spawning grounds, have had the required effect, the institute said.

A suspect was arrested last week in connection with the diamond robbery at Brussels Airport in February of 2013. The man had been arrested early in the enquiry but later released. He came to the attention of investigators again after his girlfriend’s teenage daughter complained to a youth worker that she had been dragged out of bed on one occasion and forced to unload diamonds out of boxes.

The EU Commission has called on the Belgian state to end what it called a “secret protocol” allowing media groups to avoid paying VAT on digital news products such as website subscriptions. The exemption from 21% VAT cost the treasury millions of euros, but the existence of the agreement between the media groups and the tax administration was never revealed. The current finance ministry said the government would comply with the Commission’s order to scrap the agreement.

The traditional paper ticket for five or 10 trips on the Brussels public transport network MIVB will disappear by this summer, to be replaced by the electronic Mobib card, the author-

ity announced. At the same time, the Mobib system will be extended to include Flanders’ De Lijn network and train tickets. The old cardboard card still accounts for 8.5% of journeys with MIVB. Fernand Koekelberg, former commissioner of the federal police, has been appointed as contact person between the police and the regions. Koekelberg is currently an adviser to the police management committee after being sacked once for alleged expenses abuses and again when facing rape charges.

He was acquitted in the latter case, and in both cases had his dismissal overturned by the Council of State.

A man who was paralysed from the waist down in a bus accident in Thailand has launched a new app giving information on accessibility for wheelchair users in five Flemish cities: Antwerp, Bruges, Ghent, Hasselt and Kortrijk. Michiel Desmet said the lack of such “basic” information in the 21st century was “infuriating,” leading him to create the app with the help of four volunteers. The app, On Wheels, received a subsidy of €20,000 from the equal opportunities ministry.

Belgian defence forces will shortly have a fourth arm to add to land, sea and air. Defence minister Steven Vandeput is expected to announce the creation of a new national cybersecurity force, charged with the protection of data traffic and the prevention of and response to cyber-attacks.

The city of Antwerp is expecting 20 ocean-going cruise ships in 2015, on top of 587 river cruises, a city spokesperson said. Each passenger spends an average of €100 in the city, mostly on food, drink and admission to museums or other tourist attractions.

told he was no longer required. He was not told, however, where to report for work next, so he stayed home and continued to be paid.

In 2005, the city found out and, understandably, decided to make his situation permanent by sacking him. It also demanded the repayment of €155,000 in salary.

Martens took his dismissal to the Council of State and won. His dismissal was illegal, and he must be reinstated. He was, but was promptly sacked again by the city of Antwerp. He is now seeking not only the overturning of that decision but also the salary to which he was entitled between his first

The word “icon” is too often bandied about in relation to TV personalities, but Paula Sémer has actually earned it. She was one of the first women to present TV programmes, and last week she turned 90.

Sémer was born in Antwerp in 1925 and began working for the city’s rationing department in the last months of the Second World War. She also worked for a time for the national organisation for war veterans.

Not long after the end of the war, she began acting in radio dramas and hosting broadcasts on the National Institute for the Radio (NIR). She soon became a familiar voice to listeners in Flanders, and when NIR started TV, she made the transition, together with (Tante) Terry Van Ginderen and Nora Steyaert. She landed a leading role in Flanders’ firstever TV drama, Drie dozijn rode rozen (Three Dozen Red Roses).

She presented programmes for women, one of them featuring the first ever live birth on Flemish TV, with other controversies including discussions of sexual-

ity in 1965. “We wanted to fight for the rights of the father to be allowed to be present at hospital births, something that was permitted almost nowhere,” she commented later.

Off screen she was active in breaching the taboo around breast cancer and worked to have women allowed to sit the exam to become a TV producer.

In 1989 she was named head of science for the public broadcaster BRT (now VRT). Sémer retired in 1990 but continued to write and publish.

Sémer was one of the prime movers behind the creation of the Flemish Television Academy, and in 2010, she won a lifetime achievement award (pictured).

“Women these days are no pushovers,” she said in a recent radio interview. “I hear and read things in interviews that make me think, ‘well done’.” Not that the lot of women cannot still be improved: “I had such a great professional life, but the fact that I’m still hearing the same complaints as I heard 50 years ago makes me sad.” \ Alan Hope

Flanders Today, a weekly English-language newspaper, is an initiative of the Flemish Region and is financially supported by the Flemish authorities.

OFFSIDE It’s off to work we don’t go An Antwerp man is taking the city to court for six years in back pay. An extraordinary case, especially when you consider that Dirk Martens, the man in question, had already stayed home for five years collecting his salary from the comfort of his armchair.

The legal parcours undergone by Martens would require several law degrees to follow, but we’ll try to simplify it here.

In 1986, Martens (pictured), a theatre technician working for the city, was seconded to the Echt Antwaarps Theater to provide technical services, which he did conscientiously until 2000, when he was

Paula Sémer

© Bart Musschoot/VRT

The logo and the name Flanders Today belong to the Flemish Region (Benelux Beeldmerk nr 815.088). The editorial team of Flanders Today has full editorial autonomy regarding the content of the newspaper and is responsible for all content, as stipulated in the agreement between Corelio Publishing and the Flemish authorities.

© Koen Fasseur/De Standaard

sacking in 2005 and his re-hiring in 2011, a delay which was entirely due to the wheels of justice turning exceeding slow. The amount this time: €122,000 (and change).

Martens has not, however, been without employment: He had a regular role in the TV comedy Chez Bompa Lawijt, which ran for 60 episodes on VTM until 2012. Right now he is between roles. \ AH

Editor Lisa Bradshaw DEPUTY Editor Sally Tipper CONTRIBUTING Editor Alan Hope sub Editor Linda A Thompson Agenda Robyn Boyle, Georgio Valentino Art director Paul Van Dooren Prepress Corelio AdPro Contributors Daan Bauwens, Rebecca Benoot, Derek Blyth, Leo Cendrowicz, Katy Desmond, Andy Furniere, Diana Goodwin, Julie Kavanagh, Catherine Kosters, Toon Lambrechts, Katrien Lindemans, Ian Mundell, Anja Otte, Tom Peeters, Daniel Shamaun, Senne Starckx, Christophe Verbiest, Débora Votquenne, Denzil Walton General manager Hans De Loore Publisher Corelio Publishing NV

Editorial address Gossetlaan 30 - 1702 Groot-Bijgaarden tel 02 373 99 09 editorial@flanderstoday.eu subscriptions tel 03 560 17 49 subscriptions@flanderstoday.eu or order online at www.flanderstoday.eu Advertising 02 373 83 57 advertising@flanderstoday.eu Verantwoordelijke uitgever Hans De Loore

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\ POLITICS

5TH COLUMN Shaky progress report

Six months in, Belgium’s federal government is mostly known as a kibbelkabinet – the squabbling cabinet.

Prime minister Charles Michel tries to avoid getting caught up in the many debates. The image that sticks, however, is that of a puppet on a string – the real leader being N-VA party president Bart De Wever.

Michel’s MR is the only Frenchspeaking party in the coalition, which contributes strongly to the image.

N-VA, too, is having some difficulties settling in. It is struggling with the power it holds as the largest party and the generosity towards smaller coalition parties that implies.

Also, the “change” of N-VA’s campaign slogan has yet to materialise.

When the government was formed, N-VA agreed to halt its agenda of institutional changes. Social and economic changes, however, have proved to be much harder than expected. Lowering taxes and stimulating the economy is thwarted by the economic downturn and resistance from within the federal government.

And how can a party stand for leaner government when it holds the portfolios of internal affairs and defence, scraping for funds already?

The Christian-democrats, then. CD&V promised to become “the government’s social face”, which led them to demand a tax shift, from labour to capital. With a disapproving N-VA, and facing criticism from organisations traditionally associated with CD&V, the party now faces opposition from all sides.

The government of Flanders gives rise to fewer emotions.

With cuts in welfare, culture and education, however, it has received plenty of criticism. De Wever’s shadow hangs over the debate in Flanders, too, as his recent remarks on racism have shown.

The Flemish government is not immune from the federal level, either: the recent federal budget decision was quite a blow, as the regions and communities are now unexpectedly receiving €750 million less in state funding. In Flanders, the situation was extra painful, as the same parties make up both the federal and Flemish governments.

The setback, which understandably irritated ministerpresident Geert Bourgeois (N-VA), was the result of the sixth state reform, agreed on during the previous term.

So while the federal ministers rejoiced at having an easier than expected budget control, they left their Flemish colleagues scrabbling for change. \ Anja Otte

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Minister proposes improved services for rape victims

As professor reprimanded, government discusses obstacles facing victims Alan Hope More articles by Alan \ flanderstoday.eu

T

he Free University of Brussels (VUB) has reprimanded Willem Elias, philosophy lecturer and dean of the psychology faculty, for a Facebook post he made in the immediate aftermath of the death of former socialist politician Steve Stevaert.

Stevaert’s body was found in a canal near Hasselt on the same day that he was informed by the court that there was enough evidence to try him on rape charges. A woman submitted the complaint in 2013, saying that Stevaert – who had been a minister and provincial governor before leaving politics in 2009 – had raped her in his office in 2010, but she was afraid to come forward out of fear of losing her government job.

Elias, a friend of Stevaert, addressed his post to “the woman who has this on her conscience. You go to the police immediately after a rape, or at the most a day later. Not after three years. And victims who are driven home by the chauffeur are even more rare,” he concluded, referring to elements of the case.

VUB rector Paul De Knop described the message as “inappropriate”. “Victims also need our support,” he said. “This message does not represent the views of the university.”

After the post was picked up and widely published in media across the country, the university examined Elias’ past posts and discovered that this was not the first instance in which he criticised women for reporting rape. He noted,

“The obstacles are substantial”

© Courtesy Het Nieuwsblad

for example, that the accusation of rape against the French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn “wasn’t a problem for Louis XIV”.

The VUB issued a statement. “Rector Paul De Knop has had a serious discussion with professor Willem Elias. The rector made his disapproval of his expressions on Facebook more than clear and stressed how hurtful they were. Professor Elias accepted his responsibility and apologised sincerely to his faculty, to the university and, above all, to the victims of sexual violence.”

“The last thing I want to do is minimise rape,” Elias said in his own statement. “I apologise to anyone who has been injured by my words.”

In related news, federal minister for equal opportunities Elke Sleurs called for more support for victims of rape to make it easier for them to report the crime. According to research, nine out of 10 women who are raped in Belgium do not file a report.

“The obstacles for victims are of course substantial,” Sleurs told VRT News, and “the figures are, unfortunately, not good. Everyone does their best, but the problem is a difficult one. I think we need to better train police, psychologists, social workers and doctors.”

Sleurs (pictured) proposed multi-disciplinary support teams based on the model of the expertise centre at Ghent University, which holds consultations specifically aimed at the victims of sexual violence. “However, in practice, it isn’t always simple,” she said. “If someone is raped in a small town, how do you bring them into contact with an expertise centre? These are matters we are looking into. We want to figure out how to bring help closer to the victims.”

The minister plans to produce an action plan by the summer. Sleurs is also a member of the board of VUB and was asked to react to the Elias statements. “I find that unfortunate, of course,” she said. “That sort of stereotypical thinking lies deep within our society, and it’s something we need to work on. Any statements that result in victims feeling discriminated against are to be deplored.”

Flemish government unveils action plan to tackle radicalisation The Flemish government has approved an 11-point plan aimed at preventing young people from being indoctrinated by radical ideologies. The government began to evolve its strategy earlier this year following terrorist attacks in Paris and a foiled terror attack on Belgian soil.

The main points in the plan involve effective exchange of information, monitoring of online activity and support for local organisations. The plan encourages closer contact with parents of young people attracted by radical ideas and offers support to vulnerable young people at an early stage.

The programme involves all government departments, with family and welfare minister Jo Vandeurzen (pictured) playing a key role in supporting parents of vulnerable young people.

According to reports, two Belgian residents a week leave to fight in Syria, most of them from Brussels and Antwerp. Minister of the interior and integration, Liesbet Homans, who originally proposed the

plan, said “prevention is crucial in dealing with the radicalisation process. We want to offer everyone concerned – from local authorities to social workers to teachers to parents – a maximum of support when they are confronted with people who are at high risk of becoming radicalised”.

Other elements in the plan include the creation of a help desk run by the new family support organisations Huizen van het Kind. \ Derek Blyth

Flemish parliament launches YouTube channel to connect with voters The Flemish parliament has launched a digital strategy that will be “transparent, accessible, open and social”, speaker Jan Peumans has announced.

Alongside a revamped website, a YouTube channel will broadcast sittings of the parliament. Users will be able to watch sittings live, replay them later and share them on social media. “The aim

of the website is to be userfriendly, accessible and easy to share,” Peumans said.

The website was designed to highlight the most soughtafter information, including members of parliament, schedules of meetings and parliamentary documents. Each MP has their own dedicated page with a biography and a list of their initi-

atives, as well as a link to social media feeds.

Peumans hopes the website will make communication with citizens more effective. “A parliament is the heart of a democracy and so it has to provide transparent information about its representatives and the work they perform,” he said. \ DB \ www.vlaamsparlement.be

Flanders goes to Council of State over Brussels’ radio stations The Flemish government is to bring a case before the Council of State alleging that French-speaking radio stations in Brussels are in breach of an agreement limiting the strength of the signal they may broadcast, culture minister Sven Gatz told the Flemish parliament.

The FM band in the capital is saturated, and the difference in signal strength means Flemish stations are being drowned out in many parts of the Brussels region.

According to Gatz, the two communities had a gentleman’s agreement not to allow one set of broadcasters to shout louder than the other. In 2013, then media minister Ingrid Lieten signed an agreement with her French-speaking Community counterpart to draw up a plan for a fair division of radio frequencies – something that still has to be done.

Last year, the French-speaking Community decided unilaterally to allow stations to increase their signal.

Gatz said he remained ready to discuss the matter. “But at a certain point, even problems that have dragged on for a very long time, need to find a solution,” he said. \ AH

\ COVER STORY

april 15, 2015

The place to beer

Leuven kicks off sprawling, month-long beer extravaganza

WWW.LEUVEN.BE/BEERCAPITAL

continued from page 1

Dormaal and De Kroon breweries and City Beer Golf, which combines a round of city golf with beer tasting.

Zythos Beer Festival is in many ways the highlight of the year for Belgian beer lovers, if only for its sheer scope. Though beer festivals regularly take place across the region, each with its own local colour and specialist attractions, Zythos is one of a kind.

With about 100 stands for breweries and beer firms (companies that sell beer brewed for them) and more than 500 beers to try, this Leuven festival has it all.

It goes on for two days in the vast, cavernous dankness of the Brabanthal. This year, the glasses have changed from 15cl to 10cl, which allows you to sample more beers than before, according to Zythos chair Steven Crabbé.

Zythos is the Greek name for an ancient, beer-like Egyptian beverage, as well as a variety of hop. It’s also the name of the Belgian beer consumers’ association, which has been organising the festival every year since 2004. The festival originally took place in Sint-Niklaas but moved to Leuven in 2012 in order to cater to the growing crowds.

“Every year, the Zythos Beer Festival attracts more than 15,000 visitors to Leuven from all over the world, thanks to the selection of more than 500 Belgian beers on offer,” says Crabbé. “The personal contact with the brewer is also very important. I’m convinced we can go on growing in many different ways, not only in visitor numbers but also in quality. We still have a lot of work to do on the whole beer experience, for example.”

Leuven Beer Month closes with what may turn out to be the most interesting event of all: the twoday Leuven Innovation Beer Festival, organised by brewer André Janssens of Hof Ten Dormaal. The remarkable thing about this festival is not only its content, but the fact that it’s happening at all.

In January, Hof Ten Dormaal was hit by a serious fire that destroyed buildings, equipment and a large

© Marco Mertens

© Filip Claessen

The Leuven Beer Weekend programme includes pub and brewery tours, beer golf and a one-of-a-kind festival

part of the brewery’s product.

Barely three months later, when most normal people would still be hiding under the bed covers, Janssens is rebuilding his brewery – with the help of many in the beer world who rallied to the cause.

And he’s taking on side projects like this.

“The 75 beers that will be presented by 16 international brewers are characterised by their craftsmanship but, more than anything, by the innovative manner in which they were brewed,” Janssens says.

“That innovation might be in the ingredients, the techniques used, the production process, the energy used, the packaging or even the origin of the recipe.”

The festival was deliberately kept

small-scale, he explains, and takes place in the unique setting of De Hoorn brewery – where Stella Artois was originally brewed.

Local food producers will be on hand to provide eats to go with

the drinks.

“And for those who want to learn something in the process,” says

24-26 April

Janssens, “we plan a series of interesting lectures on innovation in the world of beer”.

Leuven Beer Weekend Across Leuven

Doing Zythos A selection of 500 beers (the full list can be found on the festival’s website) is enough to make the head of even the most experienced beer taster spin, so we asked some old hands for tips on how to get the best out of Zythos.

Joe Stange, author of Good Beer Guide Belgium: “Ask other festival-goers what they’ve had that’s great today. If their eyes light up when they tell you, go find it. Start with the lighter, less bitter stuff and go up from there. Something lighter might be the best beer at the festival, but you’ll never know it if you taste it after a barrel-aged double whatsit. Then it will taste like water.”

Paul Walsh, publisher of Belgian Beer & Food magazine: “Go early before the crowds arrive and leave early; it can get messy. Don’t be afraid to ask basic questions; most beer brewers aren’t snobby.

Avoid the lure of the fast food

trucks outside; go and eat in Leuven after.”

Sofie Vanrafelghem, beer sommelier and author of Bier: Vrouwen weten waarom (Beer: Women Know Why): “Zythos is a great beer festival because you can meet a lot of the brewers. So definitely ask a lot of questions, even the stupid ones.

First, go exploring without looking at any list. Discovering a country without knowing where to go and where the hotspots are is so much more fun, and it’s the same with beer. If you feel lost, go to the little tent in the centre. The advisers can answer any beer questions but also recommend

beers to your taste.”

Kevin Desmet, Belgian Beer Geek blogger: “Prepare a list before you go. Check the beer menu online and mark the beers you want to taste. Take some bottles of water with you and drink enough water between beers. Make good use of public transport.

Zythos must be one of the best accommodated festivals when it comes to public transport. Have fun and enjoy, but don’t overanalyse the beers.”

Louis Zachert of German beer blog Hopophilia: “Try to avoid the ‘big names’ – we all know who they are. Be open to new flavours. Let yourself be surprised by brews you haven’t tried before.”

\5

\ BUSINESS

week in business Brewing AB InBev The federal competition authorities have begun an “informal investigation” into the recent beer price increases

by AB InBev and its largest competitor, Alken-Maes. The authority is concerned by the timing of the increases as well as the similarity of justification: to be able to continue investing in breweries and products.

Business clubs De Warande The Brussels-based club founded in 1988 to promote Flanders’ business in Brussels is to open an affiliate in Antwerp this summer in the yacht club on the Scheldt’s left bank. There are plans for a new building on the site.

Energy Luminus The local affiliate of Electricité de France (EDF) is investing up to €600 million to develop its wind energy capacity in Belgium over the next four years. The company will build 100 additional onshore mills.

Finance ING ING Belgium has renamed its life assurance and asset management wings as NN Insurance and NN Investment Partners. The two divisions will also come under the management of the Nationale Nederlanden Group under an agreement reached with the EU Commission.

Food Vandemoortele The Ghent-based frozen food group has announced a new bond issue, intended to finance the takeover of the Italian frozen food company Lanterna-Agritech. Vandemoortele’s last issue was in 2012, which raised €75 million. The Italian acquisition is thought to be only the first of many.

Retail Talking French The women’s fashion retailer has been declared bankrupt by the commercial tribunal in Antwerp. The company’s 20 remaining stores have closed and their 90 staff made redundant. TF attempted a capital increase in December of €1.73 million. The year 2014 was, according to retail federation Comeos, the worst ever for the retail trade in Belgium.

Technology Technolink The tech start-up in Bilzen, Limburg, began trading last week, a project of former Flemish minister Johan Sauwens and two partners. Technolink manufactures a robot capable of manufacturing plastic parts.

\6

Joint African trade mission

Flanders and the Netherlands embark on first co-operative trade mission Alan Hope More articles by Alan \ flanderstoday.eu

T

he first operational joint economic mission involving Flanders and the Netherlands will take place from 31 May to 5 June in Ghana and Senegal (pictured), minister-president Geert Bourgeois announced at the weekend. Flanders will be represented

by Flanders Investment & Trade (FIT), accompanied by its Dutch counterpart, the state service for Dutch enterprise (RON).

“FIT and RON will pull together to make this mission a success for businesses in both Flanders and the Netherlands,” Bourgeois said. “The co-operation is certain to open doors for the maritime and dredging industries.”

Flanders and the Netherlands have been working towards greater co-operation in overseas missions since 2013, when former minis-

© Courtesy Maersk Line

ter-president Kris Peeters and Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte travelled to the US. Last autumn, Bourgeois renewed the contact, promising Rutte that he would organise a new joint mission this year.

“We are neighbours and important trading part-

Unions fear job losses due to FedEx takeover of TNT Unions representing employees of courier firm FedEx have warned that a takeover of rival TNT could cost up to 400 jobs at the FedEx European headquarters in Brussels. “As one competitor is taking over another, and they both do the same thing, they will be looking for synergies,” said Hans Elsen of the union ACV. “In all likelihood, depots will be merged and couriers will cover both routes.”

An even greater concern to unions, however, is FedEx’s decision to move its headquarters to Amsterdam, where TNT is based. “It’s scandalous that we had to learn that from a press release,” Elsen said. “I assume that local management had only just found out themselves and had to get something out quickly.”

Unions say they were not consulted, although the so-called Renault law makes this mandatory. FedEx is offering €4.4 billion for the loss-making TNT, and already has the approval of the largest shareholder, PostNL which holds 14.7% of the shares.

TNT, faced with competition from

© Courtesy Aradecki/Wikimedia

Germany’s DHL as well as the American UPS, has piled up €673 million in debt over the last four years. TNT has a network of 550 depots built around 19 hubs.

FedEx has declined to comment on the union’s allegations but promised it would try to avoid “substantial job losses”.

The TNT sorting centre in Liège, which employs 1,500 staff, will be maintained, the company said.

At the same time, FedEx will be looking for a buyer for TNT Aviation, also based in Liège. FedEx is a US company and is not by law allowed to own a European airline. \ AH

Municipalities take legal steps against intercommunal taxation The Association of Flemish Cities and Municipalities (VVSG) is to bring a legal action before the Constitutional Court over new rules by the federal government on the taxation of intercommunales. These are public utilities, such as energy distributor Eandis, that are run by municipal authorities in partnership, sometimes with additional private sector partners.

Last week Eandis said it would pass the cost of extra taxation on to its clients, to the tune of €10 per electricity client and €20 per gas client. Since 1 January, the intercommunales have been subject to corporation tax. According to an internal financial report produced by Eandis, their tax bill for 2015 will come to €104.6 million. Eandis, which is active in 80% of Flemish municipalities, plans to make the customer pay.

According to VREG, the average electricity bill for a household consuming 3,500

© Courtesy Het Nieuwsblad

kilowatt hours will go up by €53 to €684 for the year.

VVSG is calling on the federal government to review the tax measures, director Marc Suykens said, or face a challenge before the Constitutional Court by about 25 intercommunales. The organisation considers public service providers to be unlike private companies and argues that they should not be taxed in the same way. “You have to take into account that the public sector has a public mission to carry out,” Suykens said. \ AH

ners,” Bourgeois said. “A joint mission improves the chances of Dutch and Flemish enterprises overseas.” The pair will organise another trade mission later this year, Bourgeois said.

FIT has been working on a programme to allow companies to make the most of the growth potential of the two African countries on the itinerary. So far 48 companies have signed up, mainly active in agriculture, transport and logistics and infrastructure.

“The aim is to go after opportunities for Flemish businesses in countries with a developing economy,” Bourgeois explained. “The success of such missions shows the growing importance of the African market for Flemish business.” FIT will also organise a mission to Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda this year, he said.

Minister plans cuts in green subsidies for business The government of Flanders has cut the budget for ecopremiums – financial support for environmentally friendly business investments – De Tijd reports. The budget for 2014 amounted to more than €40 million; this year the figure has dropped to €10 million.

Last year’s total was also down from the previous year: In 2013, there were 822 applications funded, totalling more than €51 million. In 2014, 856 projects were funded for a lesser amount. Nine out of 10 of the premiums went to small and medium-sized businesses, which in turn invested €200 million for the €40 million in premiums, according to figures obtained by N-VA deputy Matthias Diependaele from economy minister Philippe Muyters.

“It’s the government’s responsibility to work as efficiently as possible with taxpayers’ money,” Diependaele said. “The government has made its criteria more selective so that the premium has more of a stimulus effect.”

Unizo, the organisation that represents the self-employed, called on the government not to use the premium as a means of saving money. “Some technologies still require a push from the government to convince companies to invest,” spokesperson Piet Vanden Abeele said.

The new list of technologies supported by the premium – areas such as geothermal energy, heat pumps or hydrogenpowered engines – covers only 30 fields, compared to 150 previously. \ AH

Delhaize launches payments by smartphone Supermarket chain Delhaize has launched payments by smartphone, using the Bancontact app, the company announced. The system currently can only be used in one store – the Karreveld location in the Brussels commune of Molenbeek. Delhaize promises to have the system in operation in 15 stores by the end of the year.

The customer will be able to scan a QR code on the store’s self-scanner and enter a pin code to pay for groceries.

The advantage, according to payment systems company Worldline, is that the app can be configured to offer other facilities such as a loyalty card or personalised discount coupons. Worldline says the system is as secure as using a debit card.

Colruyt introduced mobile payments in January, and customers can pay with their phone in 350 stores. In both cases, purchase price is kept at a maximum of €250 per use.

Carrefour, meanwhile, said it was waiting for the European launch of Apple and Samsung’s payment systems before moving to smartphone purchases. \ AH

\ INNOVATION

april 15, 2015

Uncovering Antwerp’s past

Surveys reveal medieval “Beer Gates”, where Napoleon entered the city Bartosz Brzezinski More articles by Bartosz \ flanderstoday.eu

F

or 200 years, they remained hidden beneath the Scheldt quays, just outside the commercial centre of Antwerp.

But last month, archaeologists unearthed what they believe to be the medieval gates through which Napoleon Bonaparte made his entrance into the city in 1803.

By projecting historical maps on to current city plans, the archaeologists were able to estimate the location of the old harbour. After the cobblestone pavement was stripped, a crane moved in to help dig through the top layers of soil.

For the finer work, the archaeologists and students used trowels and picks.

Rather than full-scale archaeological excavations, however, these are surveys, or sounding pits, explains archaeologist Karen Minsaer, who is heading up the project. “We are trying to gain information on the exact location, preservation and quality of the masonry,” she explains.

© City of Antwerp archaeology service

Archaeologists next to the remains of Antwerp’s Beer Gate

If you build something new, you have to show respect for the old “The surveys were prompted by the city’s plans to renovate the area.”

The team found medieval quay walls and the remains of two 14th-century “Beer Gates” – where brews from trading ships made their way into Antwerp. In other locations, archaeologists unearthed fortifications

from the 19th century and remnants of a Roman settlement.

But the twin gates have garnered much of the local attention. In an early 19th-century painting by Mattheus Ignatius van Bree, Napoleon Bonaparte is shown entering Antwerp by boat through one of the gates, accompanied by his wife, Joséphine, and a cohort of soldiers and servants.

“We believe he arrived through the smaller of the two,” Minsaer says, pointing to an opening in the brick walls about two-and-a-half metres wide. Only the very base of the gate remains.

Napoleon, who affectionately referred to Antwerp as “a pistol pointed at the heart of England”,

came with the intention to turn the city into his empire’s most important military port.

“He thought Antwerp old-fashioned and wanted to modernise the city and the harbour,” explains Minsaer.

Under his order, new docks were built and fortifications erected.

The old quay walls and Beer Gates became their foundation.

But 80 years after Napoleon’s reign ended, the defensive walls were torn down, the quays straightened and the canals filled in. “The new harbour took the form we know today, with the remains of the Beer Gates buried beneath,” says Minsaer.

Over time, as the port moved north, the Scheldt quays lost most of their former glory, with large tracts now

in complete disarray. Where trading ships once moored to unload cargo from northern Europe, Africa and Asia, there is now a ragged car park with occasional locals passing by.

Under alderman Rob Van de Velde, the city is hoping to breathe some life into the area by creating additional parking space to ease congestion in the city centre and raising the quay walls to prevent flooding. Changes to the landscape are coming, but for Minsaer the Scheldt Quays Master Plan is still a work in progress.

“It’s not yet clear what the city intends to do here, so our team’s advice will be to integrate these gates into any future concept,” she says. “If you build something new, you have to show respect for the old.”

At a press conference last month, Van de Velde hinted at the need to balance the city’s commercial interests and environmental concerns with the preservation of its historical legacy. He called the surveys “a fascinating glimpse of where the city’s DNA comes from”.

Vincent Verbruggen, one of his assistants, however, said: “Since the planned parking lot will be overground, I don’t think it would be possible to keep the sites exposed to the public.”

Verbruggen also speculated that the findings would likely not end up as museum pieces, as they cannot be transported easily. For now, the archaeologists will have to refill the pits and return the brick pavement to how it was, before a number of public events begin in the area this month.

Until final plans are drawn up, it remains to be seen if the 14th-century gates will ever see the light of day again.

Q&A Bart Van der Bruggen is a professor in sustainable engineering at KU Leuven. Together with the Tshwane University of Technology in Pretoria, he has built a sustainable water purification plant in South Africa Is access to drinking water problematic in South Africa?

South Africa is a country with two faces. The large cities, especially in the western part of the country, have good infrastructure. But in more rural parts of South Africa, the supply of drinking water is often inadequate. I admit that the situation is worse in many other African countries, but that’s also the reason we chose to realise this pilot project in South Africa. Thanks to the country’s leading role in terms of infrastructure, we could rely on existing expertise.

But in the long term, our goal is to export the technology to countries north of South Africa.

What makes the plant sustainable?

The plant relies on the process of gravitational

filtration, in which the force of gravity is used to push water through a series of filtering membranes. You could compare it with a coffee percolator, but the membranes are not so easy to find and install. But this process means that the plant doesn’t need external energy, and it doesn’t produce any waste material.

In Durban, there have already been some similar projects, but these didn’t go beyond the demonstration phase. But the true innovation here lies in the integration of water management into the local communities that use it.

The local people decide on the maintenance, use and financial aspects of the plant. Users also have to pay a small fee. A free system doesn’t work, as it leads to abuse.

Your actual field of research is separation technology. How did you get involved in this project?

Separation technology also includes physicochemical separations in water, which can be applied in drinking water, waste water, etc. I

KU Leuven researchers Patricia Luis (left) and Bart Van Der Bruggen

consider a development context to be an essential part of any academic’s work, but it comes in second to economic profit in science and technology these days. As a member of the Flemish Interuniversity Council, I’m also involved in similar projects in Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia. \ Interview by Senne Starckx

week in innovation Flemish company to produce robot butlers

The company that developed the software for the humanoid care robot Zora plans to expand its activities outside the care sector. It will also move its base and plans to build its own production facility. The Limburg regional investment agency LRM has allocated extra financing to QBMT to speed up its development. As a result, it’s moving its headquarters from Ostend to BioVille, the incubator and accelerator for care and biotechnology at Hasselt University’s Diepenbeek campus, where it plans to hire 50 extra staff. So far, 63 robots have been sold to rest homes, hospitals and schools.

“We envision our robot functioning in a domestic environment, too,” Fabrice Goffin, QBMT managing director, said.

Research group to improve elderly care A research group has been set up at the Free University of Brussels (VUB) to improve care for elderly people in their own homes. D-Scope unites VUB researchers with scientists from the universities of Antwerp, Leuven and Maastricht and the University College of Ghent. The aim is to enable elderly people to stay at home longer, in a more independent way. Their quality of life should thus increase, resulting in lower costs for society. D-Scope will involve elderly people and their carers in the project, to make sure their day-to-day experience is taken into account.

The project’s first report is expected in September.

Flatworms track carcinogens PhD student An-Sofie Stevens of Hasselt University (UHasselt) has developed a fast and cheap test to detect carcinogenic substances using the stem cells of flatworms.

Carcinogenic substances are currently tested on rodents; this test could lead to a reduction in the use of animals.

Stevens focused on a test using flatworms, developed by teams at UHasselt and Ghent University. “Flatworms are unique organisms for cancer research because they have a large number of stem cells that are accessible,” she said.

“Carcinogenic substances influence the division of stem cells, which results in a change that quickly demonstrates whether the substances are carcinogenic.” \ Andy Furniere

\7

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\ EDUCATION

april 15, 2015

Contractual obligations

Ghent University temporary contracts could take millions to settle Débora Votquenne More articles by Débora \ flanderstoday.eu

I

s Ghent University facing bankruptcy? The latest edition of the university’s student magazine Schamper leads with an article about years of contractual mismanagement, and says that rectifying the situation could end up costing the university more than €100 million.

Bankruptcy is maybe an exaggeration, others say. But the university is in the middle of a situation wherein it has to make amends to about 1,700 employees who were entitled to permanent contracts but were instead given temporary contracts that were repeatedly extended. In the Schamper article, employees complain that, despite their repeated requests, nothing has been done about the situation.

Pauline, one of the employees quoted, says she has been working for more than 10 years from one contract to another, while Eva had to leave her job after 13 years of consecutive short-term contracts.

That left her without any certainty

© Courtesy UGent

about her severance pay.

Not only is this causing frustration for the employees involved, it’s not in line with Belgian labour legislation. According to a 1978 law, this type of temporary contract must be extended indefinitely after two years.

The employees who were denied permanent contracts also missed

out on considerable retirement benefits, which have been granted since 2000 to staff with a permanent contract. This distinction is at odds with the anti-discrimination law, which has been in place since 2003, because people performing the same jobs are being given different pay and different rights.

Some of the people involved have

already been to court and successfully claimed their benefits.

The people concerned are mostly scientific or administrative technical staff. The scientific staff in particular depend on concrete projects as well as public and private funding. This could explain to some extent the temporary character of their contracts.

UGent is not contesting the allegations. The university’s press officer, Stephanie Lenoir, says in De Standaard that they are looking for a solution. “The negotiations are ongoing,” she says “but obviously this will be an expensive matter.”

She also explains that if they continue to work out the current proposition, meaning they would deal with the claims retroactively, “we are possibly talking about €120 million, an amount the university hasn’t got lying around.” Moreover, like other universities, UGent faces severe cutbacks in government funding; in its case, €14 million.

Poverty study hopes to increase parental involvement in schools In Brussels, where one in five young people end their secondary education without obtaining a diploma, dropping out has long been linked to poverty. A new study should help improve this troubling record by increasing parental involvement in schools.

“Because of their own difficult socio-economic situation, the parents often can’t find a way to help their children, or don’t always have the skills to take the necessary steps,” explains Bart Peeters, head of the Brussels Platform against Poverty, the organisation leading the project. “We want to find ways to strengthen the contact between parents and schools.”

Alongside the Brussels Education Centre, the platform will bring together families, teachers and directors from five Dutch-speaking primary and secondary schools in the municipalities of Brussels-City and Sint-Pieters-Woluwe.

“We talked with each of the groups separately about what they see as possible solutions,” says Peeters. “Together, we will decide which ones can be implemented the most easily and will lead to concrete projects that help children remain in school.”

Although Peeters says it’s too early to speak of results, he points to a pilot project the platform and its member association Vrienden van het Huizeke have been running in one of the schools.

“We have a social worker at Sint-Joris primary school who has lived in poverty for much of her own life,” he explains. “She gives advice to the parents and helps them with making phone calls and filling out forms. Parents find it much easier to talk to her and end up taking the initiative themselves.”

Peeters and the organisation are scheduled to present their findings by October. The study does

© Ingimage

not focus on the financial aspects of poverty, but aims to go beyond that, he explains.

“Being poor means being excluded; that exclusion makes you doubt yourself and makes you lose trust in other people, even the organisations that are designed to help you,” Peeters says. “Ultimately, it’s about building a bridge between two worlds that are having difficulty understanding each other.” \ Bartosz Brzezinski

Q&A Wilfried Decoo is an emeritus professor in linguistics at Antwerp University. One of his key interests is plagiarism.

When did you become interested in this issue?

In 1997, I was asked to give advice related to an award Antwerp University wanted to give to honour a PhD student. I soon discovered that the major part of the student’s thesis was plagiarised. The author hadn’t done any of their own research, with the consequence that the thesis could have been written in about six weeks. I started to study the phenomenon thoroughly, which culminated in my book on the subject, which I published in 2002: Crisis on Campus: Confronting Academic Misconduct.

Isn’t there a grey area between plagiarised and original work?

Sometimes plagiarism is patently obvious, such as when entire paragraphs are copied without any reference. But in most cases the perpetrator isn’t so naive. Often they deliberately seek out that grey area.

Students can be inspired by numerous sources, sneak sentences in here and there and mingle them with their own words. The result is an amalgam that’s very hard to unravel. In time, students become skilled at producing such mingled texts.

How can teachers recognise plagiarism?

In general, when a student delivers a “perfect” text – of a much higher quality than the teacher

from Germany or the UK. Interferences from these languages are often easy to recognise. For example, a Flemish student could betray themselves due to the automatic spelling and grammar checker on the computer of an unknown English-speaking student.

had expected – it often concerns a direct copy of an external, qualitative source. Conversely, a text that contains errors and deviations that are normally not found in a Flemish context is also often of dubious origins.

A lot of “French” educational material is on non-francophone websites,

How hard is it to find irrefutable proof of plagiarism?

Before you penalise a student, you have to be 100% sure that they have indeed committed plagiarism.

There are some tricks. Teachers can search online for a certain passage of words between quotation marks, so they can find those words in their precise order. If they’re lucky, the student has even copied the spelling mistakes, by which the teacher can find the original source more easily.

week in education Thomas More best for teacher training The best new secondary school teachers in Flanders come from Thomas More University College in Mechelen, according to the government of Flanders’ visitation commission.

The commission evaluated secondary education teacher training programmes in 16 Flemish university colleges.

The Thomas More degree at the Mechelen campus received the best scores.

Currently, about 350 students are registered for the degree.

The commission evaluated the schools on the intended final level, the education process and the final level.

Thomas More Mechelen was the only institute to be rated “good” on all criteria.

Bpost fund battles illiteracy The King Boudewijn Foundation has launched a call for projects that encourage children in single-parent families to read and parents to be involved in the effort. The foundation manages Bpost’s Postal Fund for Literacy. The call focuses on single-parent homes because they make up a significant part of socioeconomically vulnerable families. The goal is to prevent illiteracy being passed on from parents to children. A study by the federal agency for childcare benefits estimated in 2008 that more than 20% of Belgian families were singleparent families. The funding is meant to help children aged up to six, and applications are being accepted until 28 April.

Historical figures teach children French Children can now prepare their first French lessons using the new mobile application BJR BXL, short for Bonjour Bruxelles (Hello Brussels). Flemish publisher Die Keure developed the educational app with the support of the Flanders Audiovisual Fund. The digital lessons are meant to help children move smoothly into their first French lessons in the third year of primary school.

BJR BXL teaches children how to introduce themselves and provides basic vocabulary and phrases around themes like family, colours, transport and hobbies. Anatomist Andreas Vesalius, architect Victor Horta, King Boudewijn and cycling legend Eddy Merckx each show children the Brussels of their respective historical period through images and animations in French. \ Andy Furniere

\ Interview by Senne Starckx

\9

\ LIVING

week in activities Historic Veurne, 1914-1918 Take a living theatre walk through the city and learn about life during wartime 100 years ago. Re-enactor village, live entertainment and reduced admission to the Free Fatherland experience centre all day. A military tattoo will round out the evening at 20.00. 18 April, starting at 13.30; Veurne town centre \ www.vrijvaderland.be

Food Farm Fiesta A food festival with food trucks, top chefs, cocktails and whisky tasting. Also workshops for kids, foot massage, barber shop and more in a relaxed, retro atmosphere.

17-19 April; Driespoort Shopping, Gaversesteenweg 54, Deinze; free entry \ www.foodfarm.be

Lochristi flower market Annual market with flowers, plants, farm equipment and local specialities for sale. Pony rides, sheep shearing, bouncy castles and face painting for kids. 18 April, 10.00-18.00; Lochristi town centre; free \ www.bloemenmarktlochristi.be

Start to Golf More than 40 golf clubs all over Flanders will open their doors to non-members and offer free introductory golfing lessons. Find a club near you and register online. 19 April; various locations; free \ www.starttogolf.be

Tulip picking At 10.00 the tulip field in Berendrecht will open to the public and everyone can pick 10 tulips for free. Afterwards, enjoy the picnic meadow with its hammocks and lawn chairs, listen to live music, join in a free workshop or take a guided nature walk. 19 April, 10.00-18.00; Antwerpsebaan, Berendrecht; free \ www.tulpenpluk.be

Mattentaart walk This year, the annual walking event coincides with the opening of the tourist season in Geraardsbergen and Mattentaart Day. Walkers can choose between several routes from 6 to 42km, and everyone gets free coffee and mattentaarten.

Entertainment, flea market and more.

19 April, 7.00-15.00; Koninklijk Atheneum, Papiermolenstraat 103, Geraardsbergen; €2 \ www.padstappers.be

\ 10

Tales from the reef

Antwerp Zoo opens refurbished aquarium for fish from around the world Daniel Shamaun More articles by Daniel \ flanderstoday.eu

WWW.ZOOANTWERPEN.BE

A

fter two years of hard work, Antwerp Zoo has finished refurbishing its aquarium, with the new addition of one of the largest reef aquariums in Europe.

As you enter the building there are octopuses and newly bred seahorses at the entrance, eight freshwater tanks to the right, and eight saltwater tanks to the left containing a huge diversity of fish.

The tanks replicate environments from all around the world, to keep the fish healthy and correctly separated. They lead your eye to the back wall, which is an observation window into the colourful reef environment.

The reef tank contains roughly 4,000 vibrant tropical fish, including the clownfish made famous

by Finding Nemo. The backdrop is formed of 20 tonnes of Indonesian and Turkish moonstone, with a shipwreck theme, on which the corals grow. The corals were all sourced from other aquariums, and Antwerp Zoo hopes to use this as a seed with which to grow and research its own corals.

© Jonas Verhulst/Zoo Antwerpen

tell.” Without proper exposure to the public, ecological issues often get swept under the carpet.

The design of the aquarium gives visitors an experience that comes

People are familiar with elephants and sharks, but this is a very interesting story to tell Spokesperson Ilse Segers says: “It’s important to give attention to the unknown. People are familiar with elephants and sharks, but this is a very interesting story to

as close to coral diving as possible without getting wet. The tank’s observation window – 8 metres wide, 4m tall and 13cm thick – was imported from Houston

harbour in the US. “We had to make a hole in the wall to get it in,” says Segers. It’s made of an acrylic glass that’s just as clear but more flexible than standard glass. This means they were able to have a curved wall, allowing visitors to feel completely surrounded by the reef environment when they get close enough.

The floor-to-ceiling interior decoration combines modern lighting and technology with the original classical elements of the building, which dates back to 1911. “Since this is one of the oldest zoos in Europe, we wanted to work with new techniques, but with respect for the past,” says Segers.

It makes being in the aquarium

BITE Flanders’ Pride highlights world-class ingredients Some say that the Flemish are not a proud people, but that they should be. I have also often wondered why some of my adopted countrymen seem so modest, reluctant even, when it comes to promoting themselves and their goods. But that’s all changing, thanks to a number of government-backed initiatives aimed at showing off Flanders’ best side.

One such initiative is Flanders’ Pride, a series of online videos that puts Flemish agriculture in the spotlight. In addition to informing people about the different agricultural sectors, the films also highlight Flanders’ culinary heritage by providing a few simple recipes using some of the region’s most basic – yet versatile – products.

Flemish chef Gert De Mangeleer of Bruges’ three-Michelin-star restaurant Hertog Jan is on board to demonstrate how to quickly and

easily prepare these dishes. “I really enjoy being able to tell our guests that certain products come from local, small-scale suppliers,” says De Mangeleer. “The idea that I want to convey is that people should look for local and organic products. It doesn’t always have to come from far away to be special. There is so

much beauty around us, but we hardly realise it.”

The first video, simply called Pigs, was released in 2013, followed by The Egg a year later. This year, Flanders’ Pride presented Milk during the international fair Agriflanders.

In the film, De Mangeleer makes three very different Flemish dishes with milk as the common denominator: smoked eel with velouté of Jerusalem artichoke, buttermilk mashed potatoes with North Sea shrimp, and rice pudding. The cooking fragments are peppered with glimpses of life behind the scenes of a Flemish dairy farm.

And the tasty dishes are a breeze to make at home.

The Egg is perhaps more entertaining, thanks to its extensive footage of fluffy just-hatched chicks. With its 224 poultry holdings, Flanders has about 9.5 million laying hens, for a total industry value of about

feel like walking down a corridor in mythical Atlantis; this effect is made stronger by the fact that all the tanks are set into the walls underneath rows of arches, making them very window-like.

It’s even possible to book a corporate dinner in the aquarium.

But it’s not just the face of the aquarium that looks good. All the seahorses and freshwater fish that are visible were bred at the aquarium, and the parent fish are protected and nurtured behind the scenes. The Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp has a number of projects in the field around the world that are aimed at helping animals and humans to co-exist in better harmony.

WWW.VLAANDERENS-TROTS.BE

€110 million.

While the sector may be a small subdivision of Flanders’ agriculture and horticulture industry, it provides every Belgian with one egg a day. And eggs are indispensable in the kitchen. Every year the average Belgian consumes 73 eggs at home.

Add to that consumption at restaurants and in processed food, and you arrive at a total consumption of about 230 eggs per person per year.

Of all the dishes prepared by De Mangeleer in these documentaries, there is one in particular that tickled my fancy: fried egg yolk with smoked herring eggs. Handled with care, the yolk of a fresh egg is first breaded in panko, then fried to a light crisp while the golden centre remains soft and runny. Topped with a spoonful of smoky, salty fish eggs, the dish provides a tantalising flavour and texture combination. \ Robyn Boyle

april 15, 2015

Humanity restored

Double exhibition puts faces to Belgium’s liberated death camp prisoners Alan Hope More articles by Alan \ flanderstoday.eu

WWW.KAZERNEDOSSIN.EU WWW.BREENDONK.BE

A double exhibition in Mechelen and Willebroek focuses on portraits of Belgians who were freed from Nazi death camps after the Second World War.

T

he liberation of the surviving prisoners held in the Nazi death camps at the end of the Second World War is the subject of a double exhibition at the Dossin museum in Mechelen and Fort Breendonk memorial in Willebroek, near Antwerp.

The Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights, better known as the Dossin museum, faces the former military barracks that were used during the Occupation as a transit and detention centre for Jews and others destined for concentration camps, particularly Auschwitz.

Almost 26,000 people passed through the barracks – 25,482 Jews and 352 Gypsies, including 5,430 children. Only 1,276 lived until the end of the war.

Fort Breendonk, 20 kilometres south of Antwerp and built between 1909 and 1914, served as a labour and transit camp and is now a national memorial. The first prisoners arrived in September of 1940. During the course of the war, there were between 20 and 600 prisoners present at any one time, mainly those working in the black market, smugglers, Jews and others who broke antiSemitic laws.

About 3,600 people passed through the Fort Breendonck camp; 1,733 survived the war, while about 300 were murdered in the camp itself. The camp was

given back their faces. That corresponds perfectly with the main mission of the Dossin museum: to place the victims once more in the midst of life.”

At Breendonk, meanwhile, the liberation narrative is that of Paul Lévy, the former head of the Belgian Radio News Service turned war correspondent, who followed in the wake of the Allied

The horrors are brought into the light and documented in full liberated in September of 1944.

The exhibition at Dossin concerns Paul van Zeeland, the Belgian high commissioner for repatriation, who was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany, in the spring of 1945 – exactly 70 years ago – to help bring his compatriots home.

“The main focus of this exhibition is without a doubt the portraits of the liberated Belgians,” explains Dorien Styven, one of the researchers at Dossin. “After months of research, we were able to identify about 60 Belgians and reconstruct their life stories. The prisoners, who had been but a number in Buchenwald, were

troops who liberated camp after camp on their way to take Berlin.

Lévy had himself been imprisoned in Breendonk in 1940 and ’41, though he was not deported. He later reported on the conditions inflicted in the camp by the liberated Belgians of the resistance on suspected collaborators. Both he and van Zeeland, in their different capacities, were there to act as the first public witnesses of the atrocities that had taken place, but also the ray of hope that liberation had brought.

“The exhibition shows not only the passage through a desolate Germany, but also the life in the camps of the victims – their

suffering, their liberation and their repatriation,” says Herman Van Goethem, director-general of the Dossin museum. “The horrors are brought into the light and documented in full; instruments of torture are shown in public; the dead are photographed.”

The purpose of the van Zeeland exhibition, too, is to restore to the inmates some semblance of the humanity that had been stripped from them. Dossin’s research

centre identified 60 Belgian prisoners in Buchenwald, and the museum’s collection of documents and other artefacts has allowed each of them – once merely a number in some ghastly administrative system – to regain a face and a life story.

“They are exhibitions in their own right, but this is a unique chance to look at the same period from two points of view,” says Herbart Beyers, events co-ordinator at

Breendonk. “The co-operation was enriching for us, too. We already had a pretty broad picture of the whole story, but we were able to get several unique pieces on loan, which provided a fine addition to our own collection.”

The double exhibition is an initiative of the two participating museums as well as Cegesoma, the Brussels centre for historical research and documentation on war and contemporary society.

\ 11

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\ ARTS

april 15, 2015

Uniting through disaster

Dancer Seppe Baeyens tests ability of survivors to unite in choreography debut Tom Peeters More articles by Tom \ flanderstoday.eu

Flemish dancer Seppe Baeyens explores the redemptive power of catastrophe and what happens after things fall apart in his choreography debut Tornar, which features a motley crew of young and old, pros and amateurs

A

ceiling fan whirs overhead.

The music is dark, and the atmosphere apocalyptic. A devastating storm has just taken place. A few kids and teenagers, three adults and a 92-year-old man are the sole survivors and are slowly waking up to the nightmare around them.

Will these people – a mix of ages, sexes and cultures, strangers to each other until that very moment – be able to come together as a community?

That’s the central question Seppe Baeyens asks in his first full dance production, Tornar. After a career as a dancer that saw him perform with numerous local theatre and dance companies like Fabuleus, Kopergietery and Kabinet K, Baeyens has now taken the choreographer’s seat.

The 34-year-old spent a lot of time selecting the right mix of people for Tornar. He organised workshops until he felt his group of dancers was diverse enough to represent society at large. He ultimately settled on four children, two teenagers, three professional dancers, a pensioner and a musician.

“Working with a cross-section of society makes it easier to reach an intergenerational audience as well,” he says during a break from rehearsals.

We’re at the Ultima Vez dance studios in the Brussels commune of Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, where Baeyens is producing Tornar under the artistic supervision of acclaimed Flemish choreographer Wim Vandekeybus and with the support of the European network Life Long Burning, which supports young dancers and performers.

“Wim is an icon, but passing on his expertise to the younger generation is essential to him,” Baeyens says. This kind of knowledge-sharing makes even more sense when veteran artist and protégé share similar ideas about educational goals and working with local partners and different age groups, like Baeyens and Vandekeybus do.

Tornadoes typically destroy everything in their path, but in Baeyens’ choreography they represent a new beginning. “Some people are lost,” he explains. “The ones who stay behind have to reorient themselves, and then you get what you often notice in our society: You need a disaster to strengthen solidarity between neighbours.”

When do you really get to know these people? he asks. “When there’s flooding in the street. We need an external enemy to bring down the walls between us.”

The Flemish choreographer took this “get to know thy neighbours” motto pretty literally. Leon Gyselynck, who plays the nonagenarian, lives just opposite the Ultima Vez workshop in Molenbeek. If you had told him a few months ago that he’d soon be making his debut as a dancer, he would have laughed in your face, Baeyens says.

But from the moment he met the retired butcher, Baeyens thought he might make an interesting cast member. So he asked him to attend a workshop he organised as part of an intergenerational research project at Ultima Vez last year.

“On the first day, he only stayed for an hour,” Baeyens says. “On the second day, he hung around for almost three hours, and on the third day he wore his jogging suit and said: ‘I’m in.’ He must have felt at ease, surrounded by a lot of other non-professionals. We never gave him the impression he had to play someone else.”

Because every single dancer can add his or her own colour, they seem to all feel connected on stage. In the aftermath of the storm, 18-year-old non-professional dancer Bassam Nakhel, for instance, protects and assumes responsibility for two children, while professional Mike van Alfen takes the helm with his natural, mature presence as he circles the stage.

“People warned me before I started working with children and youth: ‘You have to take care of them’,” says Baeyens. “But I always believed that ultimately they will take care of each other, as long as you don’t give them too many rules.”

WWW.BRONKS.BE

© Danny Willems

Dancer-turned-choreographer Seppe Baeyens wanted his cast of dancers to reflect the diversity of society

Baeyens’ own experiences with hierarchical power structures are a case in point. As a teenager, he got himself expelled from the Sint-Jozefs College in Aarschot.

Fortunately, one of his teachers had already introduced the young Baeyens to the world of dance when he invited Leuven choreographer Karlon Fonteyn into the classroom for a special project.

“At first, I was only interested in it because it got you out of class,” he says, “but I soon discovered a language in which I could express myself.”

The episode helped Baeyens realise that traditional hierarchical student-teacher relationships weren’t for him. “Up to this day, I believe that there is something very precious in the frankness of children and that we can learn something from them.”

Aside from a couple of work-

shops he took with star choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Ultima Vez, Baeyens never followed formal dance classes. He developed his skills on the job, and looking to professionals and nonprofessionals has been a through line in his career. “I’m an autodidact, and I consider that my biggest strength. It forces me to keep things open – to trust my gut feeling rather than the technical background I lack.”

Baeyens recognises the same uninterrupted mind-set in children and non-professional dancers. “Their spontaneity and energy make up for any lack of formal dance training,” he says. “Just like I was introduced to dance accidentally, I want to engage people who are not familiar with it. Look

17-18 April

at Leon and how he developed.

He would have never auditioned; it was only by being in a performance that he acquired a taste for it.”

One of the biggest challenges for the choreographer has been to keep this spontaneity going throughout the creation process.

“I need all the differences that are within my cast, all their typical characteristics,” he says. “But now that the premiere is nearing, the younger kids especially are getting a bit more nervous, and it’s a constant struggle between keeping doors open and providing a structure they can hold on to. It’s always a risk; but I like to jump.”

Tornar premieres in Brussels before moving to Antwerp and Ghent

Bronks

Varkensmarkt 15-17, Brussels

More performance this month Last Call

Braakland/ZheBilding HETPALEIS First, there was Dansen Drinken Betalen (Dancing Drinking Paying), a play about a young girl wandering through the city streets, from the Leuven theatre company Braakland/ZheBilding. Then there was Dansen Drinken Betalen – (Almost) The Movie, the adaptation of the same story into a graphic novel by Antwerp artist Philip Paquet.

Projected on to a big screen with live music and storytell-

ing (pictured), these performances are the last leg of this fine collaboration. And there’s an English-language version, dubbed Last Call.

28 April (in English), 29 April to 3 May (in Dutch) at OPEK, Vaartkom 4, Leuven WIN TICKETS TO LAST CALL! To win a pair of tickets to see the English-language Last Call on 28 April in Leuven, send an email by 19 April to editorial@flanderstoday.eu with “Last Call” in the subject line.

Winners will be notified the next day

We Want More

Tristero & Transquinquennal In this collaborative effort between Brussels theatre companies Tristero and Transquinquennal, questions are raised about the battlefield at micro and macro levels, and this without temporal or spatial limitations. The urge to always be strongest, to overcome, to write and rewrite history for posterity is everywhere they say – also on stage. 23-25 April, Kaaitheater, Sainctelettesquare 20, Brussels

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\ ARTS

week in arts & CULTURE The Missing nominated for three Baftas The British-Flemish co-production The Missing has been nominated for three Bafta awards, including Best Actor ( James Nesbitt), Best Supporting Actor (Ken Stott) and Best Drama Series. The BBC TV series was shot entirely in Belgium and also features Flemish actors, including Titus De Voogdt (22 Mei) and Hilde Heijnen (Parade’s End). Co-produced by the Brussels-based Czar, the eight-part series is about a British couple whose fiveyear-old son goes missing while the family is on holiday in France. The production was supported by the Belgian Tax Shelter for filmmaking and the Screen Flanders fund. The Baftas are Britain’s annual awards for film and television, and the TV awards ceremony will be held on 26 April. The Missing will air on Eén starting on 21 April.

E-books slowly gaining in popularity Slowly but surely, e-books in Dutch are gaining in popularity, according to figures released by the Dutch book distributor Centraal Boekhuis.

Approximately 5.2% of Dutch-language books sold are e-books. One year ago, that number was 4%. Borrowing digital books from libraries is also more popular than a year ago, up to 300,000 in the first quarter of this year from 100,000 last year. Fiction remains the most popular genre for Dutch-language e-books.

5,000 sign up for K3 talent show More than 5,000 women have signed up to be considered as members of the new K3 pop group. Last month, the Flemish trio of singers, who appeal to young girls and have become an institution in Flanders, announced their retirement. At the same time, they revealed that a reality talent show would decide the three members of a whole new K3, a group founded by executives at kids’ TV and stage production house Studio 100. Interested singers who are 18 years or older can still sign up at the Studio 100 website until 30 April. The TV show K3 zoekt K3 will air in the autumn. \ www.studio100.be

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Victorian meets modern

Ghent exhibition pays tribute to early photography pioneer Vanessa Rombaut More articles by Vanessa \ flanderstoday.eu

N

ineteenth-century British photographer Julia Margaret Cameron created singular portraits that bucked conventional trends and focused on the emotionally resonant aspects of her sitters. The Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent is hosting an exhibition to celebrate the bicentenary of her birth and the 150-year anniversary of her first exhibition of work.

Though she began her photographic career late, at the age of 48 when she received a camera as a gift, Cameron is today considered one of the most important and innovative photographers of the 19th century. She has been hailed as a pioneer of soft-focus photography and other experimental techniques such as negative scratching and the use of multiple negatives to form a single picture.

The daughter of British and French colonialists in Calcutta – her mother was aristocracy – Cameron eventually left her native India with her husband for London. Her sister was connected to Holland House, where an artistic salon brought Cameron into contact with important figures of the day, including scientist Charles Darwin, poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, painter George Frederic Watts and playwright Henry Taylor, all of whom would become her photographic subjects in the 1860s and ’70s.

The Ghent exhibition follows Cameron’s short 11-year career, during which she produced an impressive number of portraits.

Largely borrowed from the Victoria and Albert Museum, they show her subjects in profile, with strong directional lighting in front of

dramatic, black backdrops, which gives the sense of the subjects floating out of the darkness.

Cameron also photographed women, though she posed them as famous religious or literary characters such as Hypatia, the fourthcentury Greek philosopher. One of the few exceptions to sit as herself was Cameron’s niece, Julia Jackson, the mother of author Virginia Woolf, whose arresting gaze halts you as you enter the exhibition.

Although this exhibition captures Cameron’s modernity, her Victorian ideals are plainly on view in the section titled “Madonna Groups”.

This selection highlights the significance of biblical themes, especially the Christ and Madonna, and highlights Cameron’s belief that art should be morally uplifting and instructive.

However, the photography still relies on key experimental techniques such as soft focus and negative scratches to achieve specific effects. Cameron was criticised widely for these formal experiments, but she still had her supporters, according to British contemporary and author Anne Thackeray Ritchie.

“It is, perhaps, no disparagement to Mrs Cameron to say that she is not a popular artist … People like clear, hard outlines, and have a fancy to see themselves and their friends as if through opera glasses,” she once wrote. “These things Mrs Cameron’s public may not find, but in their stead are very wonderful and charming sights and suggestions.”

The most telling section of the Ghent exhibition is “Her Mistakes were her Successes”. In the photograph “La Madonna Vigilante/

© Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Julia Margaret Cameron’s photo “St Cecilia, after the manner of Raphael”, 1865

Watch without ceasing” Cameron attempts to fix a fault on the negative by scratching the emulsion.

The result is a black halo over the Madonna. With “Daughters of Jerusalem”, she blends two negatives into a single photo.

Although these experiments are rudimentary, they highlight the tenacity that Cameron possessed to pursue an experimental form at a time when photography wasn’t considered art, and the practice

was circumscribed by rigid rules.

“When coming to something which, to my eye, was very beautiful,” Cameron wrote in 1874, “I stopped there instead of screwing on the lens to the more definite focus which all other photographers insisted upon.”

Cameron moved back to India with her family in 1875. She continued to take photos there, but she died four years later at the age of 63, her work unappreciated at the time.

Mooov Film Festival brings the world to Flanders The last few months of local news – military patrolling the streets, women afraid to report rape, the environment vs urban sprawl – proves that the world’s problems are Belgium’s problems, too. That’s why you’ll find more and more local productions mixed in with the world cinema of the annual Mooov Film Festival, which is based in Turnhout and Bruges but also features a select programme in other towns across the region.

Mooov features a wide variety of movies with a specific social relevance, such as the place of women in the world, the effects of poverty and ecological concerns. Although some of the themes are classic social justice material, Mooov also brings contemporary issues to the fore, this year with a selection of films by Israeli directors, most of whom took part in a collective condemnation last year of the attacks on Gaza and its related media propaganda.

One of the most outstanding of these is Nadav Lapid’s The Kindergarten Teacher, which has both disturbed and delighted critics with its story of a teacher who becomes obsessed with a five-year-old poetic prodigy. Aside from a treatise on complex emotional relationships, it

highlights the country’s systematic abandonment of cultural and artistic affiliations.

Interestingly, many of the films in the Israeli cycle correspond with the films from the selection on women’s issues. Self Made by Shira Geffen finds two women – one Israeli, the other Palestinian – criss-crossing each other’s lives in quirky ways until they quite literally, through a checkpoint mix-up, get sent to the other’s homes (and realities).

Also highly recommended is Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz’s Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem, not only for its social relevance as we see a woman struggling to get a divorce from her husband without his consent, but also for its

WWW.MOOOV.BE

setting. The entire film is shot within the bare, grey walls of an Israeli Rabbinic courtroom. Its true-life absurdity is as much laugh-out-loud funny as it is psychologically unbearable.

From Belgium, meanwhile, is Thierry Michel’s new documentary De man die vrouwen repareert (The Man Who Mends Women), a chronicle of the life and work of gynaecologist Denis Mukwege, who has for decades been fighting against sexual violence afflicted on women in the Congo (pictured). Patience, Patience… by Hadja Lahbib, meanwhile, takes place closer to home, as older Moroccan migrant women in Brussels tell their stories of trying to fit in in a new country while also asserting their rights at home.

The festival also features the fun project My Life in Mooovies in Bruges, where famous locals – generally writers and actors – talk about and show fragments from films that have most affected them. \ Lisa Bradshaw

21 April to 5 May Across Flanders

\ AGENDA

april 15, 2015

Double your pleasure

A Balkan Story of Cinema & Music 23 April, 19.30

Bozar, Brussels

www.balkantrafik. com

www.bsff.be

T

wo strong festivals are partially joining forces this year, as the music fest Balkan Trafik and the Brussels Short Film Festival share an opening night at Bozar.

First check out screenings of a group of films between nine and 30 minutes long from Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania. Then head to the music, where you’ll find Odessalavie, a klezmer band that’s far from kosher (pictured), and the Fanouris Trikilis Trio, which combines rebetiko (Greek folk music) with choreography.

The film festival then continues, going beyond the borders of the Balkans, with shorts from the four corners of the world screened over 11 days.

Latvia, Germany and Latin America are particularly well represented, and there’s also room for trash and experimental cinema. Special attention is being paid to the work of film school

students, since they might be the next David Lynch or Lars von Trier.

All in all, you can enjoy 300 shorts from 45 countries, spread out over 107 screenings of more or less 90 minutes. A marquee tent on Fernand Cocqplein in Elsene is the place to hob-nob with directors and have a drink, while screenings

take place in Bozar and several other venues across town.

The four-day Balkan Trafik, exclusively at Bozar, is shorter but equally interesting: The main attraction of this edition is Goran Bregovic, who became famous with his soundtracks for films

by Emir Kusturica and is one of the most prominent contemporary composers and bandleaders from the Balkans.

If you like your music more traditional, the Folk Ensemble Lunxhëria are a must with their polyphonic songs and traditional dances from the south of Albania. But Balkan Trafik also deals in soul from Sarajevo (Divanhana), dub step from Bulgaria (Oratnitza) and brass from Serbia (Kristijan Azirovic’ Orchestra), to name but a few. \ Christophe Verbiest

EXHIBITION

Armwoede Festival

Welcome to the Future

Inspired by the financial crisis ( from which we have yet to recover), Brussels theatre KVS launched its Armwoede/Pauvérité/Powerty project in 2010. The idea is simple: invite economists, social workers and philosophers to join artists and citizens in a monthlong multidisciplinary exchange of ideas on poverty. This edition

KVS, Brussels WWW.KVS.BE

focuses on the concept of work.

There are discussions, a design market and the premiere of Guy Dermul’s latest stage production, Le Doute, Le Travail et La Tendresse (Doubt, Work and Tenderness), which documents the vulnerability of youth in today’s cutthroat corporate world. \ Georgio Valentino

Until 26 April The Brussels Center for Digital Cultures and Technology joins forces with the Flemish Centre of Expertise in Digital Heritage to present a unique retrospective featuring 50 digital works of art from the 1990s, the first generation of new media. The themes that absorbed these pioneering artists were, unsurprisingly, the untapped

Brussels Fred Hersch: The American jazz magician shows in a solo concert why Vanity Fair described him as “the most arrestingly innovative pianist in jazz over the last decade”.

22 April, 20.00, Bozar, Ravensteinstraat 23 \ www.bozar.be

PERFORMANCE Heist-op-denBerg (Antwerp) Buffa: Laika and Muziektheater Transparant perform a contemporary adaptation of Mozart’s Don Giovanni in a highly imaginative production about the power of subtle longing. 15-17 April, 19.00, CC Zwaneberg, Cultuurplein 1 \ www.transparant.be

VISUAL ARTS

PERFORMANCE Until 26 April

CONCERT

Brussels iMAL, Brussels WWW.IMAL.ORG

potential and uncertain future of their brave new digital world. Their masterpieces were created during a brief period in which digital design capabilities surpassed the endless distribution possibilities of today’s internet. Thus they are preserved on CD-ROMs and floppy disks, which now require vintage hardware to access. \ GV

Critique-Crisis-Desire: Art in Europe since 1945: Selection of works that best express freedom and how it has been interpreted, understood and defended in art since the end of the Second World War. Until 19 July, Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Regentschapsstraat 3 \ www.fine-arts-museum.be

MUSIC FESTIVAL Brussels Stoemp! 2015: The series of intimate acoustic concerts in 10 of the city’s cosiest cafes is back, with a diverse selection of pop and rock musicians and bands. Until 27 May, across Brussels \ www.stoemplive.be

FAMILY

MUSIC FESTIVAL

EVENT

More Music Festival

Record Store Day

15-18 April From their huge summertime Cactus Festival to their rich programme of club concerts throughout the year, the promoters at Cactus Muziek have established a reputation for bringing top-shelf international pop and rock to out-of-the-way Bruges. Their main spring event is More Music, a four-day festival in collaboration with the city’s cultural ziggurat Concertgebouw.

The event uses every nook and cranny of the impressive building for performance and exhibition.

This edition’s highlights include German indie luminaries The Notwist and Flemish alternative rock mainstay Mauro Pawlowski (pictured). \ GV

Concertgebouw, Bruges WWW.MOREMUSICFESTIVAL.BE

18 April A global celebration of vinyl culture and an exercise in corporate sponsorship… one must take the rough with the smooth on Record Store Day. The annual worldwide event was launched nearly a decade ago in San Francisco in an effort to boost flagging sales by teasing exclusive, limited-edition records and staging concerts in shops. There are events in vinyl shops across Flanders, but the biggest is the pop-up record store The Dusty Needle in Ghent’s Vooruit. Isolde Lasoen (pictured), The Bony King of Nowhere and Meuris are among the bigger names playing there. Among this year’s sought-after goodies is an orangecoloured LP by Los Angeles Afropop group Fool’s Gold. \ GV

Brussels

Across Belgium WWW.RECORDSTOREDAY.BE

Hopla!: Annual circus arts festival that brings together circus schools and professional companies keen to introduce the public to a mixed bag of acrobatics, balancing acts, juggling skills, trapeze manoeuvres and more. Until 19 April, Sint-Katelijneplein \ www.hopla-cirk.be

FILM Leuven Mamma Irma: Screening of the film in the presence of the director, Remo Perrotti, offering a confronting glimpse into the reality faced by a generation of Italian immigrants to Flanders, followed by a party.

18 April, 19.30, Het Depot, Martelarenplein 12 \ www.hetdepot.be

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april 15, 2015

Talking Dutch If it’s snowing, it must be summer

In response to: Street in New York to be named after Father Damien Mike O’Connell Lepra, the leprosy mission, was my Ma’s ‘favourite’ charity.

It’s not a popular one but does great work.

Derek Blyth More articles by Derek \ flanderstoday.eu

N

o one can deny that we get some dismal and depressing weather here in Belgium.

Only last week, a weather report carried the grim news Niks lente, het lijkt herfst en dat blijft ook zo – No sign of spring, it looks like autumn and it’s going to stay that way.

But at least we now have weather websites to warn us about what to expect. One of the best is the Dutch site Buienradar. You can turn to that before you leave the house to check whether to take an umbrella. Or wear shorts. Or both.

The site uses radar to track the rain as it moves across the Low Countries, so you might spot, for example, a brief window of opportunity between 11.05 and 11.10 when you might just be able to dash out to Colruyt between two massive downpours.

Sometimes the forecasters have some exciting news they want to tell you about. Tot 10.30 is het droog!

– It’s going to stay dry until 10.30! they exclaim, as if they are reporting a rare meteorological event that might not happen again for a century.

Another site that can be quite helpful in planning your life is Meteovista. Particularly useful is the

CONNECT WITH US

In response to: Leuven pulls out all the beer stops with tours and festival Paul Blower If it’s as good as the Brussels brewers weekend in early September I will be there?

USA Field Hockey @USAFieldHockey JHP U-17 and U-19 athletes and staff make a pit stop to snap a selfie at Brussels’ famous Atomium structure.

© Courtesy Buienradar

section called Activiteitenweer – weather activities. This lists various pastimes you might want to do in Belgium if the weather permits – Fietsen – cycling; Kamperen – camping; Strand – beach; Korte rokjes – short skirts.

Alongside each activity is a weercijfer – a weather number, which rates activities on a scale of one to 10. Wanneer bijvoorbeeld wind en regen een negatieve invloed hebben gaan er punten af – when, for example, the wind and rain are going to have a negative effect, points are deducted. De minimale score is een 1 – The lowest score is one.

I checked the site recently when some friends were visiting – Er

komen geregeld buien voor en daarbij staat een stevige westerwind – We can expect regular showers with a strong westerly wind, it said.

The activiteitenweer chart listed the options. Barbecue: one. Strand: one.

Camping out of the question.

But there was a hint of hope. Fietsen: four. We could go cycling even if there was a howling gale, it suggested. Wandelen: six. A walk in the countryside was still an option, I was pleased to see, though it seemed we would end up soaked to the skin. Best of all, Voetbal – football, scored an eight. Despite the heavy rain. And the icy blast.

But short skirts were definitely not a good idea.

Tweet us your thoughts @FlandersToday

Poll

a. Neighbours: their TVs, their fights, their midnight karaoke...

50% b. People leaving bars and smoking on the pavement outside till all hours

25% c. I'm one of the 25%: Traffic

25% fold: music, fights, kids. Living on top of each other, there’s little we can do to escape. There’s some small consolation in reminding ourselves that we are neighbours, too, so maybe we’re annoying them as much as they’re annoying us.

The rest were divided, some agreeing with the Flemish ombudsman

whose report reveals that one in four people are bothered by nighttime traffic noise. One in four agreed with that. The same figure blamed smokers or noisy revellers outside pubs. Some municipalities have already taken action against that problem. Others may be pressed to follow.

\ Next week's question: The construction industry has called for the income from a new road toll to be spent on road building and maintenance (see p2). Do you agree?

Log on to the Flanders Today website at www.flanderstoday.eu and click on VOTE!

\ 16

Paulo Vitor @PVDDR About to leave for a day in Bruges with some CFB guys! Should be fun, I’ve heard a lot of great things about the city. Flying to Krakow tmrw Beer-Ritz Leeds @BeerRitzLeeds #beeroftheday Duchesse de Bourgogne. Truly one of a kind Flanders Red that tends to split opinion. It's not for everyone but we love it!

In response to: Flemish government unveils action plan to tackle radicalisation Shirley Foxcastle I wish the UK Government were as proactive.

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the last word

One in four people in Flanders is bothered by traffic noise at night. What noise keeps you awake at night?

This week’s poll wasn’t a question of opinion, so anything goes.

Most people living in a city, or even in the centre of any sizable town, will most likely have had to suffer all three of our alternatives at one time or another.

Most of you opted for neighbours, whose problems are mani-

VoiceS of flanders today

Motor madness

Chime for a change

“The message should stress that the film is fiction and that it’s not legal to practise stunts like that on the open road.”

“I wanted to bring that huge instrument, that you normally only hear outside in the city, into people’s living rooms.”

Benoit Godart of the Belgian Institute for Road Safety wants cinemas to broadcast a safety message before screenings of Fast & Furious 7

Lorenz Meulebroek, a student at the carillon school in Mechelen, appeared with his portable carillon on last week’s Belgium’s Got Talent

Never too late “I want to make more time for my family. For my children, but most of all for my wife.”

Singer Will Tura, 74, is to ease off on his busy schedule after 58 years on stage

Money money money “Financial education needs to focus more on the concrete knowledge that young people must have as adults.”

A spokesperson for the education ministry on news that one in 10 Flemings aged 16 to 18 already has some kind of debt

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