The Floor is Flava photographed by Elodie Drareg
International 2 vs 2 Breaking Battle ‘The Floor Is Flava‘ on November 30 at C12 was photographed by the talented Elodie Drareg.
21 december is not only the winter solstice, it is also Global Orgasm. The idea behind this action is for people around the world to have an orgasm during these 24 hours, which would have a widespread positive effect on earth and human well-being.
Psst Mlle and C12 would like to celebrate this day with a pluridisciplinary event celebrating orgasm and peace while opening the conversation about female pleasure.
Psst Mlle founder Souria talks us through the program of Saturday’s Global Orgasm in C12! For the full timing, see below!
Safia Bahmed-Schwartz
Safia is a singer, a tattoo artist and an illustrator based in Paris. She caught our attention with a project she started about a year ago on Instagram where she asked her followers to send her their favourite position so she could bring it to life on paper. She has drawn more than 200 by now, while letting her style evolve from simple black and white sketches to overwhelming blue paintings. With this project, Safia opens a conversation about sexual pleasure, which she beautifully translates into arts. She will create an exclusive series on the occasion of Global Orgasm.
Mac Coco
In her performance “L’Encastrable”, Ophélie, better known as Mac Coco, presents her home-made ceramic dildos. Painted in gold, silver, black or white, they look so good you wouldn’t want to hide them in your secret drawer anymore. Is it a piece of art? Or an object of sexual pleasure? Can you actually use it? From their price to their size and their colour, Mac Coco’s dildo’s are a well-thought creation and performance questioning how sex has been (mis)represented in arts for years.
Mika Oki
Mika is a visual artist, a Dj, a producer, a radio manager at The Word, and also our dear resident. With a background in sculpture and electro-acoustic music, she explores the notion of intangible spaces and emotional landscapes through AV installations, music and mixes. As a DJ, Mika Oki knows how to surprise the dance floor with a selection ranging from jungle, uk bass and gqom to dark electro, mesmerising trance and heavy EBM. She will close the night b2b with Zeta Lys.
Lola Haro
Awarded as “Most Promosing artist of 2019” by Red Bull Elektropedia, Lola Haro is one to watch. She burst into the scene in 2018 with a fresh selection of warm sounds and an intuition for creating the right mood. Her love and passion for music and her authentic approach has been refreshing and gained her a lot of recognition in the Belgian club scene. In only 12 months’ time she got her first Boiler Room under her belt and shared the dj booth with countless highly respected international selectors. She will open our after party on C11.
Zeta Lys
Lucia Rosalie is a Dutch DJ and artist, based in Brussels. Her ever alternating sets blend together a variety of genres – fueled by broken rhythms and percussion. Once a month she sets off Oskari to discover new places in her radio show at The Word Radio. Other appearances of Lucia include Red Light Radio , Stroom, Listen Festival and Dekmantel. It’s the third time we have the pleasure to invite her and she will close C11 alongside our resident Mika Oki.
Leen S.
Leen is a certified Hatha Yoga instructor with more than 450 hours on her clock. She is currently studying at the Tantric Institute of Integrated Sexuality with Layla Martin to become a Sex, Love, and Relationship Coach. On Global Orgasm, she will Orgasmic Exploration workshop. Experience neo tantric techniques that allow you to connect to your body, your sensuality, your sexual energy and your desires. Sexuality Coach Leen S. will take you on a journey of movement, breath, sound and meditation. You will feel energized and joyful, ready to have better and more full bodied orgasms!
DJ Tumide
If you go out sometimes in Brussels, you must have come across Sasha Vernaeve. Though she doesn’t call herself a real DJ, with years of experience dancing in front of ‘real’ ones, this music lover knows how to take over the dance floor better than anyone else by now. Dj Tumide will play some sexy tracks alongside her friend DJ Marais to close our day programme.
Dj Marais
Has a passion for digging for all kind of new sounds. Delphine is now a resident at The Word Radio where she has her own radio show called “Internal Session”, which she describes as a “musical session featuring interviews about the guests’ musical genesis and the sounds that represent them at the moment.” She will play some hot track together with Sasha to close the day programme.
2F4F
2F4F is an audio-visual label run by Daya and Katia. The aim of their project is to truly blend sound and visual when all too often, the music industry isolates the visual component of music creation from its sonic counterpart, reducing it to mere promotional use as is evidenced by the prevalence of the video clip format. They will work with us on a special orgasmic scenography in C11.
Timing (C11)
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15:30 – Opening Orgasm Market
Home-made lubricant and oil by Andrea Istria
Ceramics dildos by Mac Coco
Drawings by Safia Bahmed-Schwartz
Tote bags by Luz Daniela Legrain Sanabria
Want to sell your work? Submit it to souria.cheurfi@gmail.com
16:00 – Orgasmic Exploration workshop
With Leen S.
The session will be 40 min. followed by 20 minutes of Q&A and sexy discussions.
17:00 – Listening session of erotic podcasts by sound magazine QUD
18:30 – Performance “L’Encastrable” by Mac Coco.
19:00 – DJ sets by our dear DJ Tumide (Sasha Vernaeve) and DJ Marais (Delphine Marais)
Special scenography by 2F4F
Party in C11 (23-06h) :
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Lola Haro
Mika Oki b2b Zeta Lys
Founded in 1989 in Brussels, ARGOS is an institution and resource for the production and advancement of critical audiovisual arts, as well as for its distribution, conservation and restoration. This text is their mission statement for Saturday’s night we host with them.
There was a brief yet fruitful period, roughly from the late 1960’s to the early 1980’s, when art and clubbing were most intimately entwined. In fact, some of the most exciting art from this era could only be experienced in night clubs, where it was often produced site and context specifically.
At the time, these innovative artistic interventions couldn’t be viewed in the many museums and galleries that would soon become the main sites for realising and experiencing artistic production. The subsequent taking of art into sanctified and “neutral” art spaces signifies a true loss, through which key connections with everyday life and pleasure were erased.
So what kinds of shifts in meaning can be be produced if art spaces and nightclubs collaborate on programmes as equals? Which connections established anew? Throughout the early days of video art, a significant part of its production took place in non visual art contexts, ranging from music venues to dance recitals to broadcast television. Its return to some of these contexts is merely cyclical and part of its ongoing history.
Of course, art as such has never truly left the club, but that’s a sweet secret only nightclubbing people know. The recognition that artists and artworks have always remained vital to nightclub activities through multi-directional inspiration and creation is long overdue. But it is also appealing to start engaging with DJing as dynamic artistic expression or the organising of club nights as nocturnal curating, the nightclub presenting an at times more dynamic, and unbridled alternative sphere to the daytime dealings of the art world proper.
The celebration of ARGOS’ 30th anniversary at C12 signifies both a new beginning for us and a revisiting of the interwoven history of contemporary art and dance music. We hope that you enjoy what we’ve come up with – an evening of music and video – and that it excites you about future C12 X ARGOS collaborations.
Niels Van Tomme, director ARGOS
Tom Brus, founder C12
December brings three projects to C12 that we are extremely proud of hosting.
1. Contemporary Dance • Cassiel Gaube: ‘Farmer Train Swirl / Étude’
When? Saturday December 7
Info & tickets
Farmer Train Swirl – Étude is a kinesthetic and subjective investigation of the field of House dance – a style born in the clubs of Chicago & New York in the early eighties. When regular C12 DJ Kong witnessed the performance by Parts (Rosas) graduate Cassiel Gaube in Desingel Antwerp earlier this year, he felt an immediate connection to his own practice as a DJ and electronic music writer. He decided to invite Cassiel to C12, to take the performance out of the theatre, straight to the dance floor of a night club.
2. Theater • ‘Fantasio’ from Alfred de Musset by Club Ajâki
When?
Friday December 13: tickets
Saturday December 14: tickets
The Club Ajâki, a theater company in an Artists’ sandwich club way, will take you on a new journey. In 1834 was published the comedy in two acts of Alfred de Musset: « Fantasio ». Today, Indira Garcia seizes this famous text of Musset, and put it to you delicately there, in the C12, high place of the alternative culture of Brussels.
The DJ «Fleur» will skillfully interfere in this 1h30 of theater, bringing you slowly to the mad mood of the whole party night! Played in French, « Fantasio » encourages us to question ourselves about our disillusions and our hopes. What’s more appropriate to think about that than the C12, one of the icons of our nightlife?
Internet will tell you that Fantasio is cynical, jaded and revolted.
He has “the month of May on the cheeks, the month of January in the heart”. In short, he is bored, despite his youth.
In this half-bourgeois, half-feudal and romantic Germany where he lives, his friend Spark, who knows how to deal with the society’s mediocrity, tries in vain to bring him back to the “normal”. But what Fantasio seeks deep within him is a great thought, a great goal to accomplish. This moment occurs the day when the forced marriage of Princess Elsbeth is prepared with a fat and ridiculous prince of Mantua. From 1834 to the present day, who is not Fantasio?
Fantasio Generation.
3. Psst Mlle • Global Orgasm • Exhibition Safia Bahmed
When? Saturday December 21
More info
21 december is not only the winter solstice, it is also Global Orgasm. The idea behind this action is for people around the world to have an orgasm during these 24 hours, which would have a widespread positive effect on earth and human well-being.
Psst Mlle and C12 would like to celebrate this day with a pluridisciplinary event celebrating orgasm and peace while opening the conversation about female pleasure.
The Floor is Flava 2019 is the first edition of a brand new international breakdance battle happening in Brussels, organised by Future Art Movement. 16 duos of world-class B-boys will be battling each other to become champion and take home the prize money. Who hypes the crowd and jury most with their best moves, skills and flows?
12 teams from every corner of the world have been invited to participate: Russia, South-Korea, brazil, USA, France, Netherlands, Canada, Ukraine, … Apart from these, an open qualifier will be held the day of the event to attribute the last four spots of the tournament. Anyone can subscribe to the qualifiers, with teams from Spain, Denmark, France and Italy already registered. Are you up for it?
Future Art Movement is a non-profit organisation founded in 2015 by Benoît Quittelier. After having done a Phd about hip hop Culture in Brussels, he decided to specifically dedicate himself to one of the conclusions of his study. It revealed that art forms emerging from hip hop culture have a hard time finding a fair place inside the cultural institutional network.
6 Belgian teams were invited for the tournament. Who are they?
Benoît: I believe we invited Belgium finests B-Boys. Tirock and Lucky from ‘Belgium With Attitude’ are a kind of dream team. They are some of our finest dancers, putting Belgium on the international break dance map.
Admir and Simon represent Team Shmetta, a Flemish historical crew. Simon is the actual Belgian champion and he will just be back from India where he will have represented Belgium.
We will also have a special collaboration between Belgium and Brazil with lawson and Ratin. Lawson is a Brussels based dancer that has been world champion with a French crew in 2011.
The three other Belgian teams are really the next generation, the upcoming dancers. Battle Droids have been world champion in the kids category two times in a row. Style Invaders are is a crew winning a lot of jams for 2 years now. They have a really intricate style and they start to be recognized internationally. Funky Belgian’Z. are the next generation from Brussels. They have been Benelux champion in 2016.
We also asked Benoît where the break dance tradition comes from.
Benoît: The breaking art form appeared first in the Bronx in New-York in the early 70’s. It was a deprived area at that time with a lot of gangs controlling the streets. When Hip-Hop emerged, everybody in those neigborhoods was involved, even the gang members. Slowly, instead of fighting with fists and knives, they started fighting with moves and skills. This still exists today, but I really think it’s important to see what’s behind. Battling is mostly a way of exchanging. If you come to The Floor is Flava, you will see a lot of cyphers where dancers exchange energy without battling.
To me a good battle is a battle where you don’t care who wins because both sides have done their thing to the fullest. It’s not always the winner that you will remember the most. It’s the dancer that touched your soul with his style. Sometimes picking the winner is a really difficult task that’s why we will have world-class judges on november the 30th.
What music is to be expected during The Floor Is Flava?
Benoît: Hip hop and sampling are central, but you will hear so many musical influences in the DJ-sets. Raw funk and 90’s US rap will also be very present, but every DJ will bring his own touch. Some DJs will also remix contemporary rap tracks, while others will explore more electronic sounds. There are really no rules. As long as the drums are funky and the BPM is good, you could even have a jazz or rock track played. Since this art form emerged in New York in the 70’s, funk and soul clearly play an important role.
(c) Nachtschaduw
What is Benediction? Hear it from the principals.
Join the next Benediction party with The Black Madonna October 11th!
Thanks to Absolut & Visit.brussels ⚡️
Those who danced in our second room C11 last weekend, might have noticed the change: a beautiful 4,5 x 2,2 meter fresco is now decorating the space. We invited painter Clara Duflos for the job and afterwards she was willing to share a few words with us.
Pictures: Kieran Young
You won’t believe it when you see the beautiful artwork Clara finished, but it’s the second time only she created such a huge painting. The universe she is currently creating has been in her head and paintings since about a year, as you can witness on her Instagram page. She opted for a painting with dynamics in it, to fully synchronize with the moving crowd of an electronic music club. Central in her work are woman pictured without a face or expression, anonymous, symbolizing the often tensed position of women in society. “They are fleeing from a place, away from something”, Clara explains.
Clara is from Grenoble in France, but has been living in Brussels for more than 6 years now. Based on her drawings for C12, she has already been asked to renew the well-known mural in Ixelles restaurant ‘Les Super Filles Du Tram’ and more exciting new projects are lining up.
Come and take a look at her work in our club.
Good friends who share a vision for sound and taste. Andrea Mancini aka Cleveland and Colin Volvert aka Rey Colino don’t need an introduction to each other when we meet in anticipation of their curated night at C12. “Off the record, I’m doing this because I want Cleveland to release on my label Kalahari Oyster Cult”, Colin jokes. “Show me the contract first”, Andrea hits back. Friday night will be without a doubt an entertaining night, offering a line-up curated by Cleveland in C11 and a Kalahari Oyster Cult label night in C12. Who did they invite and what’s cooking lately in their worlds?
Andrea is a born and raised Luxembourger from an Italian family. He moved to Brussels to study, first political science and later art school. When discovering electronic music and club culture, he started dj’ing and producing music. Since his Travelguide EP on Oscar Offerman’s White label in 2014, he added two releases on John Talabot’s Hivern Discs and two on Loverfinger’s ESP institute, before finishing his first large project just last week: nDSi, a 2xEP collection of seven track on Hivern Discs.
Andrea: “It’s the second time I get to invite dj’s I admire in C12. The first night about a year ago was at the very beginning of the club and the vibe and dj-sets by Powder and Nosedrip were amazing, so we had to do it again. For the occasion I’m inviting Upsammy from Holland. She is a resident at De School in Amsterdam and released astounding music on Whities and Nous Klaer. Next to her Leif will perform, who is part of the Freerotation crew and an avid producer. “
Colin is a born and raised Brusseleir, who moved to Amsterdam about four years ago for his girlfriend and a masters degree in communication sciences. While writing his thesis he reached out to record shop Bordello A Parigi for an internship and not long after completing his thesis, he found himself behind the counter of the Amsterdam institution. Electronic music drew him away from a career in business statistics, starting not one but two labels: the reissue imprint Attic Salt Discs and Kalahari Oyster Cult.
Colin: “My first guest is Roza Terenzi from Australia. She released her Mwah EP on my label last year and C12 will be her first gig of a long summer tour. Also billed is Urulu from California USA, who is also at the start of his tour. They are excellent dj’s and very eager to play at C12.”
Both Andrea & Colin prefer to push artists who are breaking through, just as they themselves are causing sensory pleasures worldwide with their strong creative visions and cutting edge sounds. No better place than our C12 in Brussels to set as crossroads for their bonding worlds.