Culture beat - April 5

Making the most of the end of the school holidays is the circus arts festival Hopla! that pitches its tents in Brussels every spring. The 2013 caravan is in the Royal quarter of Laeken on April 11, Place Sainctelette and Tour & Taxis on April 12 and Place Sainte-Catherine April 13 and 14. Roll up now for a cabaret of entertainment.

Now in its fourth year, the biennial contemporary dance festival Compil d’Avril continues its exploration of other disciplines with a varied programme of performance, installations, concerts, films and talks from April 16 to 21 at Les Brigittines and La Raffinerie. Organised by the Brussels and Wallonia Federation’s choreography centre Charleroi Danses, the festival focuses on young performers as well as established dancers. Louise Vanneste opens with Black Milk (below) while a number of works focus on the notion of memory.

Despite widespread condemnation, anti-personnel landmines remain in warzones around the world with devastating consequences. The indiscriminate weapons kill and maim civilians, primarily children. In the persistent bid to remind the public of their continuing use, the Royal Army Museum is staging the exhibition Mines, treacherous weapons. Photos of victims and deminers at work until June 28. Set up in a joint operation with Belgian defence and foreign affairs ministries and the UN anti-mine programme, it shows some 50 pictures of victims and the demining efforts to neutralise them. The exhibition includes equipment, uniforms, mines and Belgium’s demining operations from WW2 to today (photo credit below: UNMAS/Marco Grob).

The theatre season in Brussels is nearing its end. French-language gems include the black comedy Jusqu’à ce que la mort nous sépare by Rémi De Vos at Théâtre Le Public until April 27. The Saint-Josse theatre is also staging Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona (in French) until the same date. Over at Varia, Woody Allen’s Adultères (French adaptation of Riverside Drive and Old Saybrook) is having a second after last season’s runaway success from April 16 to 27. Fear not though, theatregoers, Brussels annual cosmopolitan and multilingual festival arrives in May (more later).

Outside Brussels

It’s heralded as an annual blaze of spring colour, but here at Bulletin HQ the persistent chill means we’ve begun to worry about the state of our neighbour’s bulbs at the picturesque Groot-Bijgaarden Castle. Despite the dormant season, Floralia opens on Friday and promises abundant blooms and blossoms with more than 500 varieties of flower, including 400 kinds of tulips. Fortunately there are also indoor greenhouse exhibitions. We promise to don our botanic hats and check out the decorative displays up the road. Watch this space!