BabelBad: Poetry & Pizza: Aleksandr Skorobogatov and guests

BabelFestival is a free summer festival at the BabelBühne, a green oasis in the fringes of the city, with a bamboo stage, grandstand & lignets around a well.

Under the motto Poetry & Pizza: Every two weeks on Thursday evening enjoy pizza from the wood-fired clay oven & multilingual poetry happenings. A performance by a foreign-language poet with an original translation into another art discipline (dance, image, music), followed by an Open Poetry Stage with host Maud Vanhauwaert.

You may submit your own text,  , which is somehow inspired by that line of our poet. If your text is chosen, you can bring it to our stage on Thursday. We will keep you informed by e-mail at the latest on Tuesday 23 August. In the meantime, so many poets responded that we had to close registration for this evening's Open Poetry Podium. But feel free to come along, who knows, someone else will drop out the evening itself!

Alexandr's sentence (Sasha)

- Мой сын – один из трупов, нагих на железных столах.

- My son was one of the corpses naked on the iron tables.

BabelBar is open from 5 pm!

Program starts at 8 pm.

Be sure to order your pizza via the ticket link below!

We open the evening with a text fromChimengul Awut.The main guest tonight isAlexander Skorobogatov,he reads letters to his murdered son, theatrically translated by actressAnne-Laure Vandeputte. Drummer ComposerSam Gyselsaccompanies the performance musically.

Alexander Skorobogatovis a Russian-Belgian writer. His work, including the novelsSergeant Bertrand(1991),Cocaine(2017) andThe Raccoon(2020), appeared in several languages and won national and international awards. For the magazinerecto: versolast year he wrote letters to his son Vladimir, who was kidnapped and murdered in Russia in 2002 at the age of 15.

Anne-Laure Vandeputteis an actress and studied drama at the Antwerp Conservatory. She has been seen on television since 2016, including inThe Gang of Jan de Lichte, and with various companies, including SkaGeN, FC Bergman and De Roovers. She played in it earlier this yearWar of the Beasts and the Animalsof South Pole, based on the poems of Maria Stepanova, the famous Russian author.

Sam Gyselis a drummer and composer. He played in bands with big names like Arno, Arsenal, Delvis, Swan, Stef Kamil Carlens, TAZ Band, Kassai All Stars and Fugu Mango. For a number of years now he has also focused on music for theatre, including for the NTGent trilogyThe Sorrows of Belgiumby director Luk Perceval, forMetisseof Theater Antigone & Action Zoo Humain and forBinta's inner roomfrom Laika.

The poetessChimengul Awutis one of 1.8 million Uighurs who disappeared since 2017 and ended up in a Chinese re-education camp. Like other Uyghur writers, Chimengul was imprisoned without any information to the family. Chimengul was released at the end of 2020, but the threat remains.

side dish:

Homemade organic and vegetarian spelled pizzas from a wood-fired clay oven at 8 euros between 6.30 pm and 8.30 pm: order your portion via the ticket link here!

With the support of Archipel, Behoud de begete, PEN vlaanderen, poetry centre, city of Antwerp, Burgerbegroting, Literatuur Vlaanderen and district of Antwerp