Guided by headphones and holding a flashlight to illuminate the darkness of a big, empty and dormant theatre, you're cast as an 'extra' in what appears to be a dream-like rehearsal of powerlessness.

With Dance # 2 Christine De Smedt and Eszter Salamon continue to build on Dance # 1 / Driftworks. The first part – listening & mouthing – was inspired by Inuit throat-singing duets. In part two – words & gestures – a dialogue develops in which syllables and words become attached to movements. What does a choreography look like when it resembles a ping-pong game of question and answer?

During the Day of the Dance we show a screening of IT'S IN THE AIR. In this 2008 collaboration between Jefta van Dinther and Mette Ingvartsen, the two performers jumped on large trampolines for 50 minutes. This video registration is all that remains of the intense physical challenge.

A rain of ash floats down onto a musician and his instrument. Its impact on the musician and his music slowly becomes visible. Sound and vision gradually transform – until finally everything judders to a halt. How does ‘little’ man relate to the ‘grandeur’ of the universe?

Young theatre maker Orion Maxted builds a performance machine. Humans take the role of the different machine parts – applying a simple algorhythm, they transform each other’s words and gestures into complex structures.

Imminent climatological, political and ideological tipping points raise the question: are we literally ‘falling out of history’? Philosopher/activist Lieven De Cauter talks with philosopher Isabelle Stengers.

This – unexpectedly current – rerun from 2008 shows Paris from the perspective of the artist-immigrant. During the 20th century countless people took refuge in the French capital, including many artists and intellectuals. Just as likely, they ended up working as taxi drivers or street cleaners. Christian Bakalov’s depictions of their social exclusion and humiliation urge you to question your own feelings of empathy and solidarity.

‘Food for thought’, that is The Discreet Charm of Marxism. Marxist texts on the class struggle and revolution are staged as a six-course meal. In the meantime real food and drink are served, as ‘books’. No one will go hungry!

What if scenography becomes the starting point from where a story unfolds? Meryem Bayram developed a series of pure and basic forms made from cardboard, that transform from an apparently empty and flat surface into a whole repertory of evocative scenic elements.

In Still Animals, Tuur Marinus brings the famous photographic studies of Eadweard Muybridge to life. Naked human bodies that are subtly manipulated by camouflaged performers, perform iconic series like the jumping cat or the flying pigeon.

How can we perceive reality if we reinvent the primary elements of language? In Holy Words, Niko Hafkenscheid revisits his passion for language and history. How did man get to the point of writing things down by using signs?