Photo : Bastien Capela
PERFORMISSIMA 3
Expect the unexpected at this high-voltage festival where traditional boundaries simply do not exist. It is a daring showcase of experimental performance art, tailor-made for those who crave experiences that defy the status quo.
Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles (Paris 4th)
About
On Friday, October 23, 2026, the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles hosts the third edition of PERFORMISSIMA, a festival dedicated to unpredictable and bold live arts. Featuring over forty international artists, including creators from Belgium, Switzerland, and France, this event celebrates creative resistance through a mix of sound, visual, and kinesthetic performances. Designed to challenge conventions, the program offers a continuous flow of artistic experiments from midday until midnight. The event is entirely free to attend and fully wheelchair accessible. Please note that participation is restricted to adults aged 18 and over.
Prototypical and deliberately undisciplined, PERFORMISSIMA asserts itself as an invitation to a collective experience and distinguishes itself by its way of inhabiting time differently.
A constellation of forms and encounters, the festival asserts itself as a polyphony of impetuous acts, an ode to the performing arts in their most unpredictable and daring aspects.
Co-produced with a network of international and cultural institutions based in Paris, PERFORMISSIMA outlines a contemporary transnational path for the plural regimes of performativity.
Alongside about fifteen artists based in Brussels and Wallonia, thirty international artists from a dozen countries gather to explore new forms, to speak, to do, and to act differently.
"In a world that tends to normalize, to anesthetize, to control, PERFORMISSIMA offers dissonance, surprise, and drift," writes Gianni Forte.
It is this energy of poetic resistance that PERFORMISSIMA seeks to provoke: a festival of unruly forms, a call to total experience, to kinesthetic, visual, and sonic extravagance.
THE PROGRAM:
- 12:00 PM: Swiss Cultural Center (32 Rue des Francs Bourgeois, 75003 Paris) - Set2Table (BE); Sophie Germanier (CH), Dustin Kenel (CH), Lan Perces (CH), Jessica Tamsin Allemann (CH)
- 1:00 PM: Swiss Cultural Center (32 Rue des Francs Bourgeois, 75003 Paris) - Set2Table (BE); Jennifer Merlyn Scherler (CH); Clément Courgeon (FR)
From 2:00 PM: Wallonia-Brussels Center/Paris :
- 2-3 PM: Gabrielle Levie (FR); Marcos Arriola (BE); Sarina Scheidegger (CH)
- 3-4 PM: Precy Numbi (BE); Caz Egelie (NL); Gabriel Fontana (FR/NL); Claude Cattelain (BE)
- 4-5 PM: Gabriel Fontana (FR/NL); Futur Immoral (GR/IT/FR); Gabrielle Levie (FR)
- 5-6 PM: Public Transport Project (CH/LT); Gabriel Fontana (FR/NL); Mardi Forestier (BE) & Georgia Blue (FR/GB)
- 6-7 PM: Darius Dolatyari-Dolatdoust (BE); Public Transport Project (CH/LT); Caz Egelie (NL); Sarina Scheidegger (CH); Fedra Morini (IT)
- 7-8 PM: Precy Numbi (BE); Futur Immoral (GR/IT/FR); Clio Van Aerde (LX); Fedra Morini (IT); Frank Lamy (FR)
- 8-9 PM: Clément Courgeon (FR); Gabrielle Levie (FR); Marcos Arriola (BE); Clio Van Aerde (LX)
- 9-10 PM: Cucina Povera (LX); Clio Van Aerde (LX); Rokia Bamba (BE) & Wanjiru Kamuyu (FR/US)
- 10-11 PM: Esben Weile Kjær (DK); Rokia Bamba (BE) & Wanjiru Kamuyu (FR/US)
- 11 PM-12 AM: Rokia Bamba (BE) & Wanjiru Kamuyu (FR/US)
Our take on this event
PERFORMISSIMA 3 arrives in the 4th arrondissement on October 23, 2026, for a full day of multidisciplinary creation. This international festival, co-produced by various cultural institutions, brings together fifteen artists based in Brussels and Wallonia alongside thirty international participants from over ten countries. The festival serves as a platform for exploring new, untamed forms of expression, encouraging total immersion in unpredictable performances.
The schedule begins at 12:00 at the Centre Culturel Suisse before moving to the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles. From 14:00 until 00:00, the venue hosts a rotating program of hourly sessions featuring diverse talents like Precy Numbi, Rokia Bamba, and Wanjiru Kamuyu. Each hour offers a unique set of artistic interventions, focusing on the interplay between sound, visuals, and physical performance.
Attendance is free of charge, and the venue is equipped to welcome guests in wheelchairs. Access is strictly limited to individuals aged 18 and up. By championing poetic resistance and collective experience, PERFORMISSIMA 3 invites you to step into a space where art is redefined through dissonance and bold exploration.
