‘BOZAR International Boxing Cup Amateur’

The Centre for Fine Arts is to become a temple to boxing for the second time. Following last year's success we are repeating our collaboration with the Brussels Boxing Academy and together hosting the BOZAR International Boxing Cup Amateur.

Boxing clubs are often commended for the good work they do towards the social and cultural inclusion of people with very diverse roots. Yet they are all-too-often stigmatised and viewed with suspicion. In tandem with these clubs BOZAR is working on a massive, two-day boxing festival in the very heart of the building, in the Horta Hall. Young boxers and adult athletes from home and abroad will step into the ring to show what they are made of. 
Just as artists have the ability to settle conflicts through artistic expression, boxers are able to channel their energy through a pure and strictly regulated encounter with an 'opponent'. It is hard to imagine a stronger symbol of the power of art and sport in our society.

On Sunday 24 November, BOZAR and Crosstalks will host a panel discussion. The discussion will examine closely the situations of the 'sans-papiers' and citizen movements in Brussels. It was the boxing club raids, in search of illegal immigrants, which prompted BOZAR to lend its encouragement to the Brussels Boxing Academy last year. What is the situation today? We put together a panel of experts to look at this. 
At the BOZAR International Boxing Cup Amateur we will also present Too Much, Too Young, a publication issued on the occasion of the BOZAR Occupied festival, marking the half-century since May '68, which was held in the Centre for Fine Arts last year and of which the Boxing Gala was part. The publication was supplied by TopoCopy.

PROGRAMME:
Saturday November 23
12:30 - 22:30 BOZAR International Boxing Cup Amateur

Sunday November 24
11:30 - 13:30 Debate Democratic Uppercuts & Presentation of Too Much, Too Young
Panel discussion with Guy Gypens (SignalKanal), Pepijn Kennis (Brussels Parliament/Agora), An Vandermeulen (GlobeAroma), Mohamed Maalem (Brussels Boxing Academy), Anton Jäger (Cambridge University), Marleen Wynants (Crosstalks), Karl van den Broeck (BOZAR/Apache). 
Book presentation of Too Much, Too Young in the presence of the publishers AKA Topo Copy: Kurt Stockman, Jonas Nachtergaele, Dries Deriemaeker, Jens Wijnendaele
14:00 - 19:00 BOZAR International Boxing Cup Amateur