Jo Zanders
2026
- Percussion
- Parade
- Join!
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MetX was the very first resident of ICAF, the renowned International Community Arts Festival in Rotterdam. From March 29 till April 2, we facilitated workshops, did interventions in the public space, presented the youth activities of our Fanfakids and closed the festival with a concert by the Sheikhs Shikhats & B'net Chaabi in Theater Zuidplein.
For their 9th edition entitled ‘The Sound of Change’, ICAF hosted for the very first time a Festival Resident. We presented a diverse range of our projects and community arts practices during an array of programmed moments throughout the festival weekend. The setup of these projects and our general activities were subsequently documented in the thematic publication The Sound of Change.
Workshops & parade BRUiTAL / New Moon
Jo Zanders and Vital Schraenen, artistic coordinators of BRUiTAL, organised a series of workshops on grooves and movement in the public space, open to anyone (musician or not) who likes to colour in outside of the lines. Together they entered the public space on the last day of the festival, parading, making music, dancing in the shadow of an enigmatic apparition: the New Moon…
Workshop Reclaim the Streets
Do our cities need (new?) rituals and celebrations? And if so… how, why, with whom, for whom? During this roundtable discussion, MetX shared experiences with other international ICAF guests and delved deeper into the socio-political and artistic relevance, necessities and challenges of such participatory manifestations within contemporary, hybrid and multi-diverse societies.
Concert Fanfakids @ Family Day
Our youth percussion band is right at home in Rotterdam. In recent years they have participated in exchanges with the local SKVR Brass Band School several times, featuring a performance at Reggae Geel and a stay in Bologna. During ICAF, the groups set the pace and rhythm of the family day with percussion initiations and concerts on the festival site.
Conference & singing initiation ‘Le Mystère des Voix Chaabi’
Under the name 'Le Mystère des Voix Chaabi' musicologist Hélène Sechehaye and singer Laïla Amezian shed light on the transmission of traditional chaabi music by women from the Moroccan diaspora in Belgium. They focused on the following topics: What do chaabi songs sound like? What is their story? And what is the role assigned to women?
Concert Sheikhs Shikhats & B’net Chaabi
As the cherry on the cake, Laïla Amezian performed with the Sheikhs Shikhats & B’net Chaabi, an XL-ensemble mixing traditional chaabi-songs with jazz and urban ethno. This concert at Theater Zuidplein was also the apotheosis of the release tour for their debut album, released via Zephyrus Records.
