Registration costs €3,50, but you get that amount back in drink tokens. This talk will be held in English.

Initiated by Corne de Gazelle and hosted at Ancienne Belgique, this panel brings together artists, cultural workers and academics to explore how SWANA and queer communities are actively reshaping nightlife in Brussels and beyond.
At a time where queer and trans communities face increasing pressures globally, this conversation positions nightlife not just as entertainment, but as a space of cultural production, resistance and new narratives.
Drawing from the experience of Gazelle L’Hafla, Corne de Gazelle leads the discussion, bridging grassroots practices with institutional perspectives. In dialogue with academics and cultural practitioners, the panel connects lived experience with research, opening a space for exchange between community-led initiatives and institutional frameworks.
Together, the speakers will address key questions:

• How do artists from marginalized communities move from underground scenes to main stages?
• What role can institutions play in supporting these practices without co-opting them?
• And how can sustainable collaborations between artists, collectives and institutions be built?

Featuring artists, ballroom representatives and cultural actors, the panel will be followed by an open discussion with the audience.
This project aims to foster meaningful dialogue, strengthen collaborations and contribute to more inclusive cultural ecosystems.

Maria Dogahe
Maria Dogahe is a Belgian-Iranian curator, dramaturg and activist based in Brussels. She works at Kaaitheater as a performing arts programmer, presenting dance, performance, and theater pieces with a particular focus on the context of presentation and the links between artists, audiences, and local communities. Her curatorial practice is rooted in collaboration, community building, experimentation and (most importantly) joy. Radically committed to Palestine (namely through her collective Caddy for Palestine) and active within Brussels' queer SWANA communities, she conceives artistic programming as a space for community, resistance, and shared pleasure.

Yasmine Dammak (They/She)
Co-founder Not Your Techno ~ Dykelicious collective ~ Booker & Agent Pulp Agency

Yasmine operates at the intersection of music, politics, and nightlife disruption. Driven by an insatiable curiosity and a refusal to accept the status quo, they have cultivated a wide-ranging musical language rooted in electronic music, first discovered at an early in Tunisia as a gateway to freedom, resistance, and connection. Since moving to Belgium in 2010, they has been actively interrogating the structures of Western nightlife: who it serves, who it excludes, and how it can be radically reimagined. Their work does not simply participate in the scene, it challenges its foundations.
As co-founder of Not Your Techno alongside Sara Dziri, Yasmine pushes back against the dominant codes of club culture, creating space for those historically marginalized within it. Their practice centers accessibility, intersectionality, and the creation of safer spaces; not as buzzwords, but as necessary tools for structural change. Grounded in their migration story and lived experience, they approaches nightlife as a political and evolving ecosystem. Their work advocates for a scene that is unapologetically inclusive, community-driven, and responsive to the realities of POC and queer/ LGBTQAI+ communities.

Sherine Falasteen
Palestinian drag royalty, politically incorrect and unapologetically bold! Dressed often in Palestinian thobes, Sherine brings hope, defiance and joy proving that as long as Zaatar and olives thrive, so do we.