So many things to do so little time. New Years Eve 2011 is gonna be a blast! Don't know where to go yet, you'd better make up you're mind quick because presale tickets will soon be sold out. Just to help you with making a decision you'll find a list of the good parties here:
Probably my first choice, dancing on Tiefschwarz for only 15 euro and back in Customsbuilding. Definitely a recommendation with three rooms starring besides Ali from Tiefschwarz, Fanklub DJ's, also Søren and Orwell!
Petrol will throw a party together with Sheridan [who were the closing act on 10 days off festival], Guy ohm with poppy electro, and different other DJ's. A great night guaranteed for only 10 euros!
Red & Blue is famous for typical over the top gay parties, so this evening won't be any different, althuough you can probably expect more madness and hot guys! [Entrance 15 euro]
A few weeks ago the Magiq spiegeltent moved their entire household to the beautiful hall of the central station and they have planned a very special evening on New Years. You can start of with a lovely dinner to continue your evening with some dancemoves on groovy tunes and banging beats.
The Stadsfeestzaal is a very elegant venue for a New Years Party, no wonder why this part is called 'Le Grand Chique'. The gold on the ceiling will make you shine even more that night. You can dance and sing a long with Cookies&Cream
There is a new club in town and its called Roxy! This new club at the Rijnkaai is already a big success in Antwerp. For only 15 euros you can enter this club and explore the new nightlife on New Years Eve!
Finally back in Antwerp after a long weekend filled with family, food, wine and Christmas chocolates. Saturday was a hard day since we started the weekend on Friday at Ra. Lovely food and people. Then we went to Glen's housewarming party, from there to Hessenhuis and back to Ra where Orwell was playing the music. We ended up at my place for an afterparty. No plans yet for this week, back to reality and finishing up this year. We should all save some energy for New Years Eve which will be held at Marks place and afterwards Kissinger, Petrol or....??
Only three days till Christmas so before you have to go to your family to celebrate and eat too much food, which makes you feel guilty because not everyone can have the same stuffed feeling as you (not), you can party hard.
Tomorrow (12/23) will be the Ra Christmas Party, only a few places left so make your reservations soon! The theme will be Oriental Christmas, special ingredients from far far away, performance by Julie Dorny and after dinner music by Orwell and Søren. Will be a great start of the Christmas weekend.
At 10pm starts the Café Capital Christmas party in Roxy Club. Entrance is 8 euros and Fanklub DJ's, Supreems and Guy Ohm will be playing!
If you are more in for an evening in the pub, then go to Izzy Maze, where the athmosphere is always good. They will have a 'Nightmare before Christmas' part, it will be a party with the music of dead heroes such as Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, The Doors and Celia Cruz.
Started last weekend with MATTERHORN003, a great party organised by a small group of young people from Antwerp. This party concept started in Octobre and last friday was already the third edition. For now they will have a short break and won't come back with Matterhorn in January. But this means they will think of new things to make the party even better, so no hard feelings and I will keep you posted about their plans!
Of course there is the Christmas market with the giant wheel. But with the weather forecast saying a storm is coming up, you can choose a saver path by spending your evening in the Arenberg theater for the free screening of Mas Corazon tomorrow.
Wednesday 12/14 - Screening of Mas Corazon
Tomorrow a documentary by Andres Lubbert will be screened in the Arenberg Theatre [Arenbergstraat 28]. The documentary shows Ricardo Gonzalez, student at the Rockschool of Hasselt, living as a streetmusician in France and Spain for a month. This singer-songwriter was born in the States, grew up in Mexico and has been living in Belgium for the past few years.
The screening starts at 8pm and entrance is free. Ricardo himself will also be there and will probably play some songs afterwards (and he might bring some friends!)
Busy weekend with my brother beeing in town, I dragged him to all the places I wanted to go, but I think he liked it. Friday was the start of Fash!on/off, so in the evening we went to the screening 'Out of fashion' which showed different shorts of fashion films. Designers that showed their collection and their view through this medium. One that was really beautiful was the one of A.F. Vandevorst, directed by Zach Gold. Can't find the film with music, but here you can watch it without sound.
Before this screening was the screening of an evening with Serge Leblon, curated by Serge Leblon. Too bad I couldn't go there, but apparently it was good. Yesterday I went to the Q&A of BOY London which was the most bizarre and chaotic Q&A I've ever been to. Host was Dutch photographer Ari Versluis, who probably had the same thoughts. Stephane Raynor was there with 3 people of his London crew. Around him sat some Antwerp people who were dressed in BOY London and could drink booze for free. At first I thought Stephane was not gonna say anything, because he gave the mic to his London crew all the time. But fortunately he also told some things about the brand, the history and the people wearing it. It was clear that they wanted the interview to be chaotic, but this made it go a little slow time to time. This Q&A was last in the Premsela series The Perfect Cut. Have a look on their website, there you can also see the other parts of these series.
I was quite impressed by the whole BOY story, it was interesting to hear how BOY wants to be seen and how it is created, but on the other hand, it was a little bit too much of 'look how cool we are'. After this we went to a completely other world, because at 6 the light parade on the Kaaien was about to start. Waited in the cold for 30 minutes (apparently it started at 6.30) but it was worth the frozen toes and fingers. We waved to the people and they really put some effort in the costumes. We all catched the Christmas vibe with Jingle bell songs in the background and Santa sitting on the last vehicle. This vibe immediately disappeared when we started dinner, eating Mexican wraps. Nevertheless it was a good start up for the Christmas days.
On Saturday night Gory of Kissinger threw a party because of the Fashion film festival. It was supposed to be in the Customsbuilding on 't Eilandje but due to some reason the party moved to the Photo museum. Not the best location for a Kissinger party so I didn't stay long. Especially when Mauro Pawloski started DJ'ing. Would have expected better music from him. So I will look forward to Kissinger back in the Customsbuilding :). For me this was the end of the Fash!on/off festival, hopefully next time I will have more time to visit the other activities. Big thumbs up for the organisation of the festival and a big thanks for bringing such interesting people to Antwerp and showing us what Fashion film is about.
With a big love for Sundays I went into the city today to do some shopping and to go to the Christmas market. It was pretty nice and I will definitely go there again in the evening. Should be prettier with all the lights.
My friend Jonathan Hens is a student Jewellery Design at Artesis Art academy and was selling some of his work at the 'Markt van Morgen'. A creative market in the Kloosterstraat for young talents. Although it was freezing cold he was still standing there with some of his classmates at 3.30pm. So we had a look at their stuff and also at the other stands. There was some great work of young people there.
Bracelets by Jonathan Hens
Love the unicorne broches
Broche by Hermien Cassiers
So with this weekend ending, I'm already looking forward to next :) First back to the office tomorrow morning, but on Friday there is MATTERHORN 003. A new party concept in town created by young people. I've been to 001, couldn't go to 002 so will definitely will be at 003! Not much plans for this week yet, but I will keep you posted.
Last night were the nocturnes and I think I've never been to so many galleries in one evening. Lots of free booze and people. After a boring lecture at the academy we went to 't Zuid. Although I had a list of galleries I wanted to go to but I didn't went to one of them. We wanted to start of at Ann Demeulemeester where there apparently was a party. But due to personal reasons of someone in my company we didn't went in but instead started the night at Tim van Laere. Beautiful paintings by Kati Heck and lots of people. Thank you for posing on this picture but since I don't have my 'good' camera anymore, some pictures get a little foggy.
After that we went to Zeno-x where there was an exhibition by Jan De Maesschalk, Jockum Nordstrom, Anne-mie van Kerckhoven and Jack whitten called 'Works on paper'. A lot of small drawings but some were quite special. I loved the simplistic and colorful work of Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven and the soft paintings of Jan de Maesschalk.
Next stop was gallery Van Der Mieden. I like this gallery because of its space and its choice of art but yesterday the works didn't really appeal to me.
We also went to the Beyond Fashion gallery, which has really special contemporary jewellery and products. Some work that really appealed to me was that of Corina Rietveld.
Last stop before we went to Nero's to have some drinks was Maes & Matthijs. Glad we went in there because I really liked the sharp-minded and funny works of Gerard Herman. His exhibition is called (in Dutch) 'Het is weer tijd voor de polonaise' (it's time again for the polonaise). Besides the nice way of installing the works they also had great messages.
This evening made me realise I should go to galleries more often, but it probably won't happen soon since I just went to a lot in one evening. I just got back from drinks after seeing the screening 'Out of Fashion' at the Fashion Film Festival. Was an interesting screening but I will tell more about that next time.
