CrowdMateFrom Thursday 24 September through Sunday 27 September, Kunstencentrum nona offers a tightly drawn Mechelen route through three forms of attention. Thursday’s Ayumi Tanaka, Thomas Strønen and Thomas Morgan trio uses the close-focus setting of Nova Express; Friday brings Emiel Vandenberghe and Birgit Keil’s dance premiere In the Afterglow to the old hall; Sunday returns to Nova Express with Emmeluth’s Amoeba and MØSTER! The sequence is distinctive because its common thread is live responsiveness: musicians shaping material together in the moment, and dancers treating technique, memory and mutual support as active material onstage.[1][2][3][4]
Thursday: Ayumi Tanaka’s trio gives silence a structural role
At 20:30 on Thursday, pianist Ayumi Tanaka joins drummer Thomas Strønen and double bassist Thomas Morgan for a rare three-way meeting whose shape is already audible on their 2026 ECM album Windflower. Tanaka’s own notes describe the recording as largely collectively created, with all three players forming the pieces in real time; the line-up arrived after its first performance together in Oslo in September 2024. That makes this a useful starting point for the weekend: three musicians with established individual languages, working in a format where balance, timing and the decay of a sound carry as much weight as a soloistic gesture. Nona frames the concert as intimate acoustic jazz, with piano, bass and drums clearly identified in the bill.[2][5]
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Friday: ballet’s afterglow enters the old hall
Friday at 20:30 shifts the emphasis from musical interplay to a duet between generations. In the Afterglow is directed and choreographed by Emiel Vandenberghe, who performs with Birgit Keil; nona presents the work as an ode to motherhood and ballet, grounded in their relationship as artistic mother and son, mentor and pupil. The production’s credits place music by Lara Chedraoui and Patrick Van Neck alongside a full stage team, so this is a performance with live-music relevance without being a conventional concert. Its focus on bodies carrying, supporting and resting with each other gives the weekend a different register of close listening: attention moves from instrumental detail to gesture, breath and the residue of a long dance practice.[3]
Sunday: two Scandinavian bands widen Nova Express
At 20:00 on Sunday, Emmeluth’s Amoeba and MØSTER! bring the programme back into Nova Express with a far rougher surface. Signe Emmeluth leads Amoeba on alto saxophone and composition alongside Karl Bjorå on guitar, Ole Mofjell on drums, and Christian Balvig on piano and synth. Nona describes the quartet’s music as open, playful and changeable, moving between fragile quiet and high-energy release. MØSTER! follows with Kjetil Møster on saxophone, Hans Magnus “Snah” Ryan on guitar, Nikolai Hængsle on bass and Kenneth Kapstad on drums. The venue identifies the band’s coordinates as trance grooves, psych-rock riffs and improvisation, a fitting final turn after Thursday’s measured acoustic detail. It is the loudest end of the route, yet it shares the same appetite for collective decision-making.[4]
One room, two tempos, a useful weekend map
Nova Express is central to the shape of the guide. Nona describes the room as an intimate jazz-club setting created in its Gouden Zaal, with saxophonist Adia Vanheerentals hosting a season built around international names and Belgian artists. Thursday and Sunday show the breadth possible under that umbrella: Tanaka, Strønen and Morgan approach the trio as a chamber-scale conversation, while Emmeluth’s Amoeba and MØSTER! expand toward electric force and group momentum. Friday’s In the Afterglow, presented elsewhere inside Kunstencentrum nona, makes the detour worthwhile by placing movement and ballet history between those two musical poles.[1][2][3][4][5]
Practical details for 24–27 September
Ayumi Tanaka, Thomas Strønen and Thomas Morgan play Nova Express at Kunstencentrum nona on Thursday 24 September at 20:30. Emiel Vandenberghe and Birgit Keil perform In the Afterglow at Kunstencentrum nona on Friday 25 September at 20:30. Emmeluth’s Amoeba and MØSTER! close the run at Nova Express on Sunday 27 September at 20:00. Check Kunstencentrum nona’s official pages again before travelling for current access, ticket and timetable information.[1][2][3][4]