Culture Beat – April 11

It’s sultry, technically exacting and currently trending around the world, including the capital this weekend. The 10th Brussels Tango Festival is performing in the Grand‘Place, venues across the city and dancing until late in numerous after parties. Watch international tango stars in action, enjoy free initiation sessions to Argentinian tango (in Royal Park)  and attend DJ and milonga (tango socials) sessions. Many shows are free, otherwise buy a pass for €80 (includes all before- and after-parties) to make the most of this tango extravaganza. Until April 14.

One exhibition in Brussels not to be missed is To the Point. The Neo-Impressionist Portrait, 1886-1904, showing at ING Cultural Centre until May 18. The rare and exceptional collection of pointillist portraits are on show for the first time in Brussels. It was Georges Seurat’s famous painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the island of la Grande Jatte” that launched the style known as pointillism or, as the French artist preferred, divisionism. Belgian contemporaries of Seurat, enthusiastically adopted the style. They included the artists Henry Van de Velde, Georges Lemmen, George Morren and Théo Van Rysselberghe. Many of their magnificent portraits on display are on loan from the Indianapolis Museum of Art, one of the world’s major collectors of the movement and co-organiser of this exhibition. As a sub-division of the larger Post-Impressionist movement, Neo-Impressionist artists renounced the open-air light used by their impressionist predecessors. Instead, they sought to create luminosity by painstakingly applying brushstrokes of primary colours, which form an optical mix in the eye of the viewer. But the pursuit was laborious, and slowly each artist abandoned the technique. Their legacy nevertheless shaped early 20th-century art. The exhibition includes creative workshop for children and adults on the theme of colour. There are also a series of lectures on the pointillism movement every Wednesday, from 19.00-20.00; reservation necessary.

With the Easter weekend approaching, the Holy Trinity Anglican Pro-Cathedral in Ixelles is presenting Bach’s Johannespassion on Good Friday, April 18, at 19.00. Entry is free to the dramatic oratario, but online registration is required at www.passiontoperform.eu. The Evangelist is Adriaan De Koster and Christus is Richard Craddock, with a team of supporting soloists and chorus, while the orchestra includes graduates of the Royal Conservatories.