JEM International Puppet Festival (7th edition)

Launched in May 2013, the JEM Festival is Belgium's most international puppet festival! Our ambition is to offer a festival that takes theatrical forms by storm, ruffling them in messy shapes and shaggy materials. More and more, puppets speak to us and to each other: they please, denounce, disconcert, amuse, disturb, provoke and astonish. Our festival promotes the art of puppetry, its tradition and its modernity, by inviting internationally renowned European theatres as well as emerging young creators. But always questioning the aesthetics of the puppet arts, and of a medium that reinvents itself and proposes new theatrical forms based on forms and techniques that are in keeping with the ambition of the art form and the formal and material multiplicity of a questioning art. The aim of the JEM Festival is to offer a rich cross-disciplinary programme, without barriers (often non-verbal shows), for all kinds of audiences: paper theatre ,shadow theatre, object theatre, string theatre, rod theatre, bunraku, girdles, tables, bags, etc. A festival for children and adults alike.

This 7th edition features 19 different shows for 39 performances over 4 weekends, including 11 Belgian Premieres by international companies (from Germany, France, Ireland, Slovakia, USA, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, DRC Congo), a Focus on South Korea (3 companies), an exhibition and happening by the great puppet creator Matt Jackson, meetings and workshops, as well as a roundtable of UNIMA International.