Festival Boutures Collectif B.R.A.V.E.

On June 5, 6, and 7, La Balsamine presents the 3rd edition of its Festival Boutures. This year, the collective and non-profit B.R.A.V.E. invests the theater and ensures its programming, giving birth to the first queer SWANA* festival in Brussels. Le Festival Boutures, it's an invitation. An invitation to reflect on the space and tool that is the Balsamine as a means of expanding our imaginaries. A collective is invited to take over the end of the season and make it its final bouquet. A displacement that allows other work processes to germinate as programming, to collect wild herbs as celebrations. This year, it is the collective and non-profit B.R.A.V.E, founded in 2019 in the north of Schaerbeek, that will come to sow its seeds at La Balsamine. B.R.A.V.E. (Bodies Rage Arts Vital Empowerment) was born from the desire to cross arts and struggles. In 2025, the collective chooses to turn towards queer SWANA* communities. Through the arts, the collective opens spaces for dialogue and offers moments that are both festive and restorative, favoring the meeting between people with intersectional experiences. For the Schaerbeek theater, inviting this collective was obvious, both for its location and for the common values shared. For this 3rd edition, the Festival Boutures will celebrate queer SWANA* communities through the first queer SWANA* festival ever organized in Brussels. The festival explores multiple belongings, those we inherit, choose, or invent: family, gender, sexuality, country, friendships, or culture. It brings together artists with diasporic trajectories linked to Iran, Jordan, Palestine, Morocco, Lebanon, Turkey, or Algeria, living today in Belgium or elsewhere in Europe. Sometimes obvious, sometimes imposed or conflictual, belonging can also be a space of refuge, joy, and creativity. The festival offers readings, book presentations, cabaret, participatory workshops, and festive moments, to create spaces where these queer voices can speak, share, and celebrate themselves. In a context marked by violence affecting the SWANA* region, the festival affirms the importance of gathering, celebrating, and creating spaces of solidarity, while giving voice to the stories and queer identities of these communities. About ten events will punctuate this festival, highlighting voices and artistic practices from queer SWANA* communities. Among the highlights, a meeting with Elias Jahshan around This Queer Arab Family, presented for the first time in Belgium, will open a space for reflection on families, genders, and sexualities in queer Arab communities. The public will also be able to attend intimate and committed poetic readings with Haleh Chinikar and Athena Farrokhzad, two Iranian poets, exploring rage, the body, and memory. A cabaret evening organized by the Gazelle Hafla collective will mix drag performances, music, and speeches in a collective and festive atmosphere. A conversation with the Franco-Algerian author, Fatima Daas, will return to her novels La Petite Dernière and Jouer le Jeu, addressing questions of gender and belonging. Finally, a tea dance orchestrated by the Herhalde and KUDUR collectives will invite a joyful immersion in a typical Sunday afternoon in Istanbul, honoring Turkish pop, with dance, music, and conviviality… and much more! *SouthWest Asian and North African