Culture beat - February 6

French Baroque art, contemporary dance revisited and music from Wales and the US

Bozar stages a major retrospective of the work of French artist Antoine Watteau (1674-1721)  subtitled The Music Lesson, its first in 30 years. Organised with the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille, the exhibition pays particular attention to the musical scenes depicted in the painter’s work. Watteau is credited with revitalising the Baroque style and nudging it towards the more naturalistic Rococo movement. Guest curator is conductor and musician William Christie, who is also at the centre of a cycle of eight concerts that evoke Watteau’s canvases.

The travelling exhibition Excision: ma façon de dire non has moved into North station in Brussels until February 22. It features 32 portraits of men and women who in one way or another have all said no to female genital mutilation, including mothers refusing to allow their babies to undergo surgery and doctors who have stopped performing the operation. 

Reviving the compelling debut performance of What the Body Does Not Remember are Wim Vandekeybus and his company Ultima Vez. The choreography is staged at KVS_Bol from February 12 to 17 before heading on an international tour that takes in the US, China and Australia and closing at Vooruit in Ghent in June. The choreography was ground-breaking 25 years ago as it introduced a new and sometimes violent physicality into modern dance. It also projected a brutal confrontation between music and dance and won Vandekeybus and composers Thierry de Mey and Peter Vermeersch a celebrated Bessie Award in New York. 

An intriguing combination of classical and jazz is celebrated in an evening of American music at Bozar on February 10. The Brussels Jazz Orchestra (who performed on the soundtrack of Oscar-winning film The Artist) and Brussels Philharmonic join two icons, pianist Boris Berezovsky and British conductor Wayne Marshall. On the programme are Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No 2 The Age of Anxiety and Wynton Marsalis’s Symphony No 3 Swing Symphony.

For a fresh take on Welsh folk, tune in to the five-piece band Calan at Wolubilis on February 7. The young ensemble, who come from all over Wales, have a foot-tapping repertoire of melodies, jigs, reels and step dance. Instruments include fiddle, harp, guitar and pipes and whistles for a traditional sound with a contemporary twist.

If joining local revellers for carnival parades in the streets doesn’t appeal but you still fancy donning a mask, head to the HotNights party in Autoworld on February 9, where the DJs will be spinning until 5.00. And if you linger until midday, don’t miss the arrival of 166 VW Beetles for the traditional Love Bugs Parade (above) in front of the museum. For the past five years the emblematic car has been celebrated on the Sunday before Valentine’s Day. The newly unveiled Beetle cabriolet will also be making an appearance.

With half-term on the horizon, head to Espace Senghor with the little ones on February 9 for a lively afternoon with Julie Boitte called Haut les cœurs!: storytelling, theatre and an animated film (two-and-a-half to five years). The 16.00 performance is sold out, but places remain for 14.00. In French.