Feminist voices from the Middle East, North Africa & Europe speak out and perform during the multidisciplinary, 10-day Tashweesh festival.

Feminist voices from the Middle East, North Africa & Europe speak out and perform during the multidisciplinary, 10-day Tashweesh festival.

17 - 27 October at Beursschouwburg

In a time when feminism is challenging the established (lack of) order, the Beursschouwburg and the Brussels Goethe Institute invite you to the ten-day, multidisciplinary Tashweesh Festival. Together, we create a bridge between a broad palette of feminist voices from the Middle East, North Africa and Europe, taking a close look at current gender stereotypes and showing how the polarization between the cultures of these different nations does not respond to actual reality.

Tashweesh is an onomatopoeic Arabic word mimicking the sound of background noise during a telephone conversation or in a crowd. If we think of contemporary feminism, we are hearing ever more and louder buzzing, in which Intersectional! #MeToo! Queer! Black Lives Matter! Women’s March! Decolonization! Intergenerational! Headscarf! and Post-binary! reverberate. Tashweesh gives the microphone to all that 'background buzz', questioning society's current norms and breaking through them. This time, the status quo moves into the background and feminism has its say.

During our performances, small talks, reading groups, screenings, concerts and hedonistic club nights, together we will create an answer to what can currently be seen as ‘the norm’, finding common ground beyond the supposed cultural frontiers. We’ll be talking about headscarves, gender conformity, public space and activist strategies, and we will question our canon. No more background noise: just safe space! 

PROGRAMME

ME 17 OCT 
20:30 Opening lecure on global sisterhood w/ Nikita Dhawan (IN/AT/DE) & Engagement (BE)
 — lecture
Pour la soirée d’ouverture de Tashweesh, nous nous concentrons sur l’importance des alliances féministes transfrontalières.
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JE 18 OCT
19:00 Big talk on blind spots and double agendas in feminist debates — debate
Cette soirée de débats avec Sonja Eismann (DE), Dina Makram-Ebeid (EG), Malika Hamidi (FR) en Salma El Tarzi (EG) touche à des questions délicates telles que le voile, le droit à l’autodétermination sexuelle et l’accès à l’espace public.
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20:00 Maryam Tafakory (IR/UK) — audiovisual lecture
Qui a dit que les femmes n’avaient pas voix au chapitre dans le cinéma iranien postrévolutionnaire ?
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VE 19 OCT
19:00 Small talk on the post-binary aspect in art practices w/ Sorour Darabi (IR) & Tucké Royale (DE) 
Trans works, trans life.
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20:30 Foundland Collective (SA/SY): Wish You Were Here! — lecture performance
Les premières migrations du Moyen-Orient vers les États-Unis en texte, en images et en musique.
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22:00 BOIBAND (DE) — concert
Inclassable. Et c’est précisément le but.
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SA 20 OCT 
17:00 Reading group w/ Sara Shaarawi (EG) & Amahl Khouri (JO)


Venez débatre sur l’écriture au sein des canons du théâtre contemporain et dans la région de l’Afrique du Nord et du Moyen-Orient.
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19:00 Small talk on feminist collectives w/ Just for the record (BE) & Bledarte (BE)
Le féminisme intersectionnel par deux collectifs bruxellois.
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20:30 Double bill:
Sorour Darabi (IR): Farci.e — performance
Farci.e montre comment la perception de la langue peut se transformer en corset asphyxiant calqué sur des normes genrées établies. 
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Monira Al Qadiri (KW): The Trans-Pacific Plant — lecture performance
De la masculinité entre le Koweït et le Japon.
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22:00 Souk Sessions: Glitter00 (MA) + DJ Dziri (BE) — club night
Arabic classics transformed into club bangers.
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ME 24 OCT
19:00 Small talk on feminist art practices w/ Mona Moon (DE)

Yes we can.
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20:30 Slam night
No slam like feminist slam. Avec Samira Saleh (NL/BE), Mona Moon (DE), Mira Hamdi (TN), Jacinta Nandi (UK/DE), Margo van de Linde (NL) et Miss Elli (BE).
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JE 25 OCT
19:00 Small talk on online & offline feminist (guerilla) activism w/ Laisse les filles tranquilles (BE) & Noms Peute-Être!
Guerrilla, super smart & stylish.
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20:30 Nadah El Shazly (EG) + Bledarte dj set (BE) — concert
L’avant-garde jazz, une tradition égyptienne ? On peut désormais l’affirmer.
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VE 26 OCT 
19:00 Small talk on muslim feminism: Mounir Samuel (NL) & Mryam Kamal Hedayat (IR/BE)

Relais d’opinion, unissez-vous ! On parle d’intégration !
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20:30 Double bill:
Danya Hammoud (LB): O.T. — dance 
Un joyau de danse expressionniste aussi émouvant que déchirant.
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Amira Chebli (TN): A Ma Place 
— dance 
Danse tunisienne postrévolutionnaire et multimédia. 
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22:00 Deena Abdelwahed live set (TN) + Soumaya Phéline dj set (BE) — club night
De la techno énergique en provenance de Tunisie, militantisme social compris.
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SA 27 OCT
12:00 Reading group w/ Saddie Choua (BE)

« Dans ma maison, dans ta maison, les dragons noirs aspirent bruyamment notre sang. »
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19:00 Small talk on women's movements w/ Nadje Sadig Al-Ali (IQ) & Rachida Aziz (BE)
Grassroots feminism for life.
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20:30 Antonia Baehr (DE): EXIT — performance
Hashtag emergency exit sign.
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22:00 Tashweesh closing party: Nur (EG) + Bosaina (EG) — club night
Avant-garde clubbing queens from Cairo.
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ME 24 - SA 27 OCT
19:00 Margo van de Linde (NL): Improvised feminism
 — lecture performance, discussion
Un dialogue en apparence simple sur une thématique en apparence compliquée : le féminisme.
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ME 17 - SA 27 OCT 12:00 - 22:00
Tashweesh - from behind the screen — looped screenings
Des films qui montrent et respectent la diversité géopolitique du féminisme.
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Contact us
About Beursschouwburg

Beursschouwburg is a multidisciplinary center for arts and reflection, an open meeting place strongly anchored in Brussels’ reality. Here we embrace the local, the global and the glocal. 

Beursschouwburg functions as a platform to present and develop a wide array of art practices and research, as a  support and experimentation network for artists, collectives and thinkers; a hub that questions normativity and welcomes new narratives.

Together with collaborators, we co-create programs that ignite fruitful encounters between different audiences, forms and genres, between art and everyday life, between the emerging and the established, between urgency and joy.

Beursschouwburg
Auguste Ortsstraat 20-28
1000 Brussel