Culture Beat - November 13

Pop culture is a boneyard and it takes a palaeontologist to inventory it properly. Artist Floris Vanhoof is up to the task. His solo exhibition My Family’s Fossil Collection at Hectoliter showcases a generation’s worth of bric-a-brac accumulated by him and his family. You’ll see curios, slides, photographs, films and a multimedia installation, all Proustian windows opening on to one Belgian family’s history.

Kaaitheater’s Soul Food series brings contemporary performers from all over the world to the dinner table. This Saturday’s guest is Brussels-based American choreographer Meg Stuart, who discusses her sources of inspiration and more with journalist Anna Luyten – all while you enjoy a bite and a glass of wine. For dessert you’re welcome to Stuart’s acclaimed contemporary dance piece Violet, staged later that night in the main hall.

As a follow-up to its successful Sixties exhibition, the Costume and Lace Museum has now turned the clock back to the Seventies. Old folk may wax nostalgic while youngsters marvel (and sometimes guffaw) at the sartorial extravagances of the Disco Age. Curators Dominique Hambye and Cristina Marchi take us well beyond the high-street designer scene and show us what the (wo)man on the street wore in that misunderstood decade situated somewhere between the idealism of the ’60s and the realpolitik of the ’80s.

Intercultural biennale Europalia India rolls on with a Bozar evening dedicated to contemporary literature from the subcontinent, represented in the flesh by three distinguished Indian writers. Vikas Swarup may not be a household name but you’ve probably seen his work. Swarup’s 2005 novel Q&A was adapted for the silver screen under the title Slumdog Millionaire, earning him a heap of awards and a worldwide audience. Joining him are Delhi journalist Manu Joseph and poet, songwriter and novelist Jeet Thayil.

The capital’s world music hub, Art Base, is also hosting Europalia artists this week. Belgo-Indian fusion trio Sitardust perform a programme of original compositions and reworked traditional tunes. Joachim Lacrosse and his sitar (the psychedelic stringed instrument popularised by Ravi Shankar and his superfans the Beatles in the 1960s) are front and centre.

Outside Brussels

Amsterdam’s Anne Frank House and Waterloo’s Wellington Museum join forces to present a historical exhibition with a contemporary warning. Anne Frank: A History for Today uses the tragic biography of the young German-Jewish girl who almost escaped the Holocaust to illustrate the social context in which Nazism took root. The exhibition also features artefacts from the German occupation of Belgium during World War Two. Originally scheduled to wrap this month, the exhibition has been extended until 5 January.

From 18 to 21 November, Louvain-la-Neuve celebrates La Semaine des Libertés. Freedom Week encompasses four nights of film screenings as well as two ongoing exhibitions, all on the subject of human rights. Among the film offerings are Closed Sea, a study of the Libyan refugee crisis, and L’Homme de sable, a career retrospective of politically engaged Belgian filmmaker Thierry Michel (who will be present at the screening, alongside the doc’s director Jose-Luis Penafuerte).