Softness in 10 pictures

Thank you Lorena, Naim, Antonin, Mélissa, Jeune Clyde, Louise, Cyriel & everybody who came to see urban dance theatre collective Softness last week.

Pictures by: Elodie Drareg

Brussels based collective Chanoir has many cards to play. Music, video, graphic design, street wear, haute couture, styling, photography, … they wish not to be narrowed down into one creative outing, choosing a pluridisciplinary approach. Before their first C12 takeover, we sat down with Antoine, Thomas and Luca.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BwwqEZcgxLa/

Thomas: “Chanoir was born in Paris about seven years ago. We were organising huge dark techno rave parties in big venues such as Palais De Tokyo. The name comes from ‘Le Chat Noir’, which was a was a Parisian nineteenth-century entertainment establishment where people like Victor Hugo used to go, thought to be the first modern cabaret. I moved to Brussels to get out of nightlife, but the collective stayed active and got a new interpretation over the years. Funny enough nightly events quickly became part again of Chanoir. We just like to throw parties I guess.”

Luca: “I’m the booker and resident dj, I’ve been around now for a year and a half. We have been doing a residency at Café Central for years, our nights were always packed and sweaty. We’re very excited to do our first C12 takeover which will stay very close to our musical DNA of electronic body music and dark industrial techno. We prefer to stay away from big expensive headliners though. Our focus is on interesting scenes worldwide and upcoming talents.”

Antoine: “For this edition we invited ‘Metaphore Collective’ from Marseille for example. We feel very connected to the scene over there, the have a similar spirit. We are even working on a collaborative project called BM844, the exact number of kilometers between Brussels and Marseille, managed by Alex Aynie.”

Thomas: “Graphic design and visual identity is essential for Chanoir. We have evolved into a textile brand, we are selling streetwear. Malika Rotchild is involved, together we do the sewing and print. Antoine, who is a photographer, has been taking thousands of photos. Our archive of pictures, scans and designs is the engine of our visual identity. As with our taste in music, we wish not to take things too seriously. Our favorite dj’s are the ones able to play a rap track into a dark industrial techno set!”

Near the entry of Horta Gallery, the emblematic side entrance of the beautiful Gare Centrale where C12 is hidden from the world, we installed C5. A former retail glass room became a space dedicated to visual arts. Visitable on Saturday afternoons and visible during the opening hours of the Horta Gallery and the club, C5 is an art space where two artist’ worlds collide, not only with each other but as well with an unsuspecting crowd of commuters and clubbers. C5 was initiated by visual artist and curator Patrick Carpentier and assisted by Manon Ceyssel. In the light of their one year anniversary and opening of the newest exhibition by Eva Claus & Jean-Baptiste Bernadet as part of Art Brussels, we had a word with Patrick.

“99% of the artists I proposed to show work in C5 have accepted. Since the concept of our small space here is rather unique, two artworks are being presented in counterposition, one of the artists has to take the risk and confirm without knowing who the other artist will be. We never use titles for the artworks, the names of the artists are displayed with an ampersand.”

“We have done 7 exhibitions so far, every single one is one full month on display. Last week two ladies rather advanced in years passed by the gallery by accident. We started talking, they were very fascinated and showed great interest. Their enthusiasm made my day. The connection with the central station during the day and with the club during the night is an opportunity to present art to people in a soft manner. Out of five passersby one might look up and sometimes a photo is being taken. Many people tell me they are pleased the gallery is alive, after so many years being empty and cold.”

“The concept of C5 takes inspiration from ‘The Holy Theatre’, the second chapter of Peter Brooks’s radical theory ‘The Empty Space’. Sacredness for him is to make the invisible visible. By putting two artworks from two different artists in one space, something might occur. When the artists tell me ‘I can see what you wanted to do’ or when the audience perceives a meaning that isn’t tangible, than maybe I have accomplished something.”

“I graduated as an actor and scenographer and started a career in scenography for pop bands, both on stage as in video. This was back in the nineties, I was very much inspired by the concerts of Tom Waits. Later I started to make my own films and when my film ‘Combat’ was rewarded at the Berlinale Film Festival things got bigger. In 2010 I did my first solo expo and meanwhile I have had the chance to do residencies at Wiels, in Rome and this year in Vietnam, among others.”

C5: Eva Claus & Jean-Baptiste Bernadet
25 April — 01 June 2019
Open on April 25, 26 and 27 from 11am to 6pm
As part of the Art Brussels OFF Programme

Words by: Koen Galle

Benediction

/ˌbɛnɪˈdɪkʃ(ə)n/

noun.

The utterance of a blessing, especially at the end of a religious service.

We are proud to welcome Benediction to our club for a monthly bacchanal. This Brussels collective subtitled ‘Rituels Exceptionnels’ is all about queer culture, cabaret and nightlife. But Benediction refuses to be identified based on a singular realm or partial audience, it’s all about being open and inclusive towards anyone, gay or straight, and any kind of codes that exist in the LGBT scene. To fully comprehend what Benediction is all about, we sat down with artistic director Juriji Der Klee and resident dj / show producer Hugo aka CASSIOPÉE.

Juriji: “Benediction was born on Sunday October 8th 2017 in bar Benelux in Brussels. For many years I had wanted to start my own events, I had been going out for years at Dirty Dancing and Libertine Supersport and was fully discovering my love for dancing and performance. At the same time I was studying opera singing at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels and released an EP where I mixed opera and electro pop. For a while I was also part of ‘Bas Nylon’, a cabaret project by Jean Biche. After having been out of Brussels for a few years to work in Paris, I realised something was missing in the Brussels queer culture scene and me, Hugo and Azo (in charge of bookings & promo) started Benediction. After nine editions at the bar on Sunday afternoons (“Certains vont à la messe… d’autres à la Benediction”), we are pleased to have found a home at C12.”

Juriji & Hugo: “There is always a dress code, we play a game. The idea is to be in the same moment, all together, centered around an intimate scene. We settle on a theme for every edition, the upcoming night is all about the Graeco-Roman Bacchanal. Those were Roman festivals based on various ecstatic elements of the Greek Dionysia. See it as the horn of plenty: unlimited love, joy and cheerfulness, at least from 10pm until 6am. For the occasion we have done a photoshoot we a few befriended models in a spring themed setting, to get you into the mood.”

(c) photos Gina Olafson – Atistic direction Juriji Der Klee

Juriji: “Like every scene, the LGBT scene can be rather coded: it’s or drag, or burlesque, or … We try to mix and mingle by booking hybrid acts and invest a lot in young upcoming performers. I try to guide them in their first steps on stage and Hugo is very good in producing shows. In the end we don’t wish to be a queer project only for a queer audience. We are open to everyone, since this is to me the only way to have people open their eyes and understand the LGBT community better. I have a lot of hetero friends who come over and have the best time of their lives. They also enjoy the parallel reality and safe space that we wish to create.”

Juriji & Hugo: “We have been clubbing and dj’ing for years and with Benediction we wish to add a certain human touch to the in our eyes rather cold techno oriented clubbing scene of today. During our nights there is always something to be seen: a live concert, a performance, gogo dancers, … Musically we go different directions but the pop or fun aspect is very important, with a huge influence by eighties and early nineties US house music. Having the legendary Joe Smooth who produced so many iconic tracks like ‘Promised Land’ is an honor. We are big fans of the Club Kids and voguing scene in New York in the nineties. They started these movements where people would dress up, exit their daily struggles and enter another reality where they felt legitimized. Definitely watch the movie Party Monster if you would like to discover more.”

Words: Koen Galle

On Saturday our main room colors house music and beyond with Hunee and Call Super, two international masters of the craft. They will be backed up by our resident Chris Ferreira, who is performing an extensive warm-up session to set the room to the perfect temperature. We had a chat with Chris about his dj ethics, vinyl records and long preparation sessions at home.

“On the day of a dj-set, from the moment I wake up until I play my first record, I can’t think of anything else but my record selection. I spend the entire day listening to my records and hand picking them from my collection. I usually start with one or a few records as a starting point after which ideas come to my mind until I assemble the collection of music that I will take with me. This process can take up to 8 or 10 hours.”

“When I’m dj’ing I like to invite people to join me and my world. I propose nothing else but myself through music. Of course I also consider the other dj’s and the vibe while preparing. I like to understand what the crowd may expect in terms of music from the line-up and the venue of a particular party so i can work around those expectations or sometimes against them.”

“I know every record that I play by heart, from start to finish. It’s impossible for me to play a track that I haven’t listened several times before. Since I play 99,9% of my selection on vinyl, I never use any digital editing or looping. I focus a lot on the original melodic and harmonic constructions of a track and its arrangements and my mixing technique is strongly rooted on those aspects.”

“I own about 2500 records, 2 Technics turntables and a Rodec mixer. Maybe in two or three sets at C12 I have played a cd or a digital file, because the track wasn’t released on vinyl or it’s something I worked on myself. It’s all vinyl for me, purchased anywhere I can: online shops, Discogs.com, second hand shops, record stores, … I use every possible source around to dig for records. I also tend to buy a lot from befriended dj’s. I have found a great deal of my favorite records in the collections of Brussels based friends like THF for example. He has been very influential not only to me but to a great deal of djs from my generation.”

“Lately I have shared two mixes with the world. The first one is a techno mix for French blog Input Selector inspired by some of my C12 closings and the Berghain gig I did in December of last year.”

“The second mix is a rather house inspired mix called Painted View part 2 which I made as a follow-up to a seven years old mix (Painted View part1). It shows my particular taste for the more jazzy and deeper side. I will never chose one “side”, simply because there is no such side, for me it’s all connected, techno, electro, house, d&b, new wave, funk, disco,… It’s all rhythmically focused music and it’s all just dance music.”

Words by: Koen Galle

Kafim has been part of the C12 team since day one. As the clubs sound engineer and resident dj, he practically lives on our dance floor, making sure the sound system runs top notch.

We had a chat with Kafim, who also shares three favorite tracks.

Kafim, what is C12 for you?

“First and foremost it’s my job. At C12 we share a philosophy, a utopian vision we pursue. The project is a collective endeavour, we discuss production, bookings and every little detail about the club on a constant basis. “

Can you recount a favorite moment in the club?

“On our first birthday party early February I was playing a long set back to back with EXAL. We were in a postpunk and industrial mood, the atmosphere was extremely exciting. These moments when you feel a perfect synch between audience and dj are the ones I cherish most.”

What’s your dj recipe at C12?

“I like to create a stream played from three decks, it’s more about layers than about going from one record to the next one. Apart from the opening track I always arrive at the booth with a blank canvas, and enjoy playing different styles of techno from harder to deeper or more atmospherical. “

What’s your prefered set-up?

“3 Pioneer CDJ players, 1 Technics turntable, a Xone 96 mixer, the Lambda Labs QX3 sound system (present in the main room of C12) and a dj booth on the same level as the dancers.”

See Kafim play on Saturday with Dax J and Headless Horseman live.

Picture by Jeremy Gerard (c).

Until Sunday March 31st the exhibition ‘NACHTVOLK / NIGHTSHIFT / PRESENCES NOCTURNES’ shows the result of a photo contest inviting photographers to work on the subjects ‘Brussels’, ‘night’ and ‘human’. It is set up by Recyclart and runs daily at the Ravenstein Gallery between 12 – 20h.

Part of the exhibition are pictures by our in-house photographer Jeremy Gerard. Read this cool feature about his pictures at Vice.

More info about the exhibition here.


We are proud to present our brand new C12 Yoga Club, a weekly get-together every Tuesday evening. It is our common goal to focus on a balanced body and soul, making our club available as a shared space to silence our minds and center ourselves.

Your teacher for our Yoga Club is Shelbatra Jashari. She is an artist, actress, dancer/performer and skilled yoga instructor specialized in Inner Peace Yoga.

Inner Peace Yoga is a yoga class that develops your knowledge of yoga teachings, from asana (poses) to meditation. In intense exercises based on the ashtanga yoga primary series, you will get to know your body better, develop breathing capacities and explore the “creative” aspects of yoga.

C12 Yoga Club is open for everyone, both beginners and experienced yogi.

Want to join?
————-

Weekly classes will be held every Tuesday from 20h30-22h, until the 25th of June 2019. Are you interested in joining, send a mail to yogaclub.C12@gmail.com

Practical info
————-

Membership cards for 10 classes will be available to purchase for 100 euro. One-off classes are also available for 15 euro.

There will be yoga mats available, but everyone is of course welcome to bring their own.

Any questions? Don’t hesitate to contact us: yogaclub.C12@gmail.com