5 structures united for the NEXT festival which lasts 25 days

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Here is a festival which lasts and whose success continues over the years! In the North and in Belgium, NEXT will begin this Wednesday, November 6, 2024 with shows galore for 25 days.

5 structures for a festival that lasts 25 days in the North and Belgium

It is on the side of the Rose des Vents where NEXT was born, which opens its seventeenth edition, that we draw this observation. “It is a collective intelligence that generated this festival and throughout its duration, each of the structures dissolved into a collective.” Even if the program brings together the discoveries and favorites of each of its members, it is indeed a common program that is proposed. And moreover, when at the start of the season each of the partners presents their programming, it is not through a very distinct central notebook that that of NEXT is proposed.

The abundance is the very definition of a festival. The spectator doesn't really know what show he or she is going to see, but it is certain that it corresponds to the DNA of the operation.

As for NEXT, it is about contemporary creation proposed by artists responding to current demands from society. Whatever the medium. Theater, dance (equal) but with crossovers towards performances, music, city philosophy conferences, exhibitions, that of Fresnoy in Tourcoing or at the Palais des Beaux-Arts. The Méliès cinema is not absent. A way of embracing and interfering in almost all of the cultural life of the region and its cross-border metropolis.

An international festival open to all

Artists from all continents meet there, in shows given in all languages. We know thanks to Next that the language barrier is no longer an obstacle, but that with surtitles in French and Dutch, they present universal shows. For this seventeenth edition, Next offers a further step towards inclusiveness by allowing audiences who are distanced due to disabilities to be able to attend the performances. The shuttles which take you to all places are accessible to PRMs.

Several shows are broadcast in sign language, or benefit from means making accessibility greater, such as these “relaxed sessions” which allow you not to sit in your chair for a long time.

Going from place to place for teams and spectators means cultivating the feeling of belonging to a territory and nourishing curiosity about what is happening there. The echo of the mutations of our world with its contradictions and its upheavals is taken care of by the artists who transcribe them.

Thus the Polish Gozia Wdowik depicts the fatigue of these abortion rights activists who go to the end of their commitment, to the point of exhaustion and burnout. (She was a friend of Someone Else) South African performer in Wasted Land, the opening show highlights the contradiction in the ecological pretensions of Westerners who shamelessly resort to Third World fast fashion workshops to ultimately create new waste. Argentinian creator Lola Aria in Los dias afuera puts inmates on stage after collecting their words.

Among the discoveries of artists that we meet for the first time, a few “headliners”; Guy Cassiers who directs Face à la Mère by Jean-Marie Lemoine the long monologue of a son who confides in his dead mother to finally tell her everything he never dared to tell her. Or Pina Bausch at the Opera for Nelken, a cult show created 40 years ago performed this time by Boris Charmaz.

Jean-Michel Stievenard

Next: 5 associated structures, becoming one for the duration of the festival: The Schouwburg and The BUDA kunstencentrum in Kortrijk; La Rose des vents, in Villeneuve d'Ascq, the Pasolini space and the Phénix in Valenciennes. A group of 19 partners in total, giving performances in 19 cultural places in the region, spread over 15 municipalities, allowing 29 shows to be seen different. In 2023, the festival welcomed 14,188 spectators. More information on nextfestival.eu

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