12 Best Performing Arts in Brussels, Belgium

BOZAR: Centre for Fine Arts

Upper Town Fodor's choice

This is the city's principal venue for classical music concerts and dance theater. Originally the first multipurpose arts complex in Europe, it was designed by acclaimed Belgian architect Victor Horta and was first opened in 1928. The Henry Le Boeuf concert hall has world-class acoustics. The complex also houses a theater and an art gallery, which plays host to some excellent traveling exhibitions.

WIELS Contemporary Arts Centre

Fodor's choice

An excellent gallery housed in the former Wielman Cueppen's brewery building (old copper brewing vats can still be seen in the café area), exhibitions are spread over four floors across the industrial-looking space. There is no permanent collection; instead the ambitious program focuses on nine large-scale exhibitions a year, each one firmly focused on boundary-pushing contemporary art.

ALICE Gallery

Lower Town

A hip little gallery located in the city's stylish boutique shopping area, ALICE tends to exhibit artists with a street edge, often mixing up graffiti, video games, and punk influences.

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Ancienne Belgique

Lower Town

City-center concert hall for mostly rock and pop acts. Tickets can be bought online or at the venue.

Beursschouwburg

Lower Town

Located in a former brewery, this local music institution is one of the city's biggest pop and rock venues. It also hosts exhibitions, film screenings, and talks, and has a history of putting free summer concerts and gigs held on its rooftop in June. Buy tickets online or at the ticket office.

Botanique

Schaerbeek

Located in a former botanical garden, this is one of the larger live venues for independent and alt-music, championing local up-and-coming bands as well as the occasional visiting big name. It also has a good reputation for eye-catching art exhibitions. Tickets can be bought from the box office.

Cinema Nova

Lower Town

This nonprofit arts cinema has a lively bar downstairs and the occasional art installation. A well-curated schedule of indie, documentary, and experimental films are often screened with English subtitles (check the website).

Cirque Royale

Lower Town

A major concert hall that has pop acts, theater, comedy, ballet, and just about anything else you can imagine. The building dates from 1878, and for years it was home to the capital's permanent circus—its basement stalls were able to accommodate 110 horses. Tickets can usually be bought at Ticketmaster or FNAC.

Flagey

Large performing arts and cinema center, and the home of the Brussels Philharmonic, who perform regularly in Studio 4.

FNAC Ticket Line

This company sells tickets for major events.

Recyclart

Located in a graffiti-scrawled, abandoned train station, this is Brussels's edgiest multidiscipline arts center. Electro, dub-step, and experimental music nights are held in the main hall, which holds up to 600 people. The underpass doubles as an open-air exhibition area, and the bar does decent pub food.

Xavier Hufkens

Among the first, and perhaps most successful, of Brussels's private galleries, this offering is firmly contemporary in tone, having played host to works from Antony Gormley, Cathy Wilkes, and Willem de Kooning. Such is the ambition of its namesake owner and curator that he apparently once had the entire roof of his 19th-century town-house gallery removed in order to airlift in an installation by the artist Erwin Wurm.

Brussels

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