Garage29 in Schaerbeek was once a garage, then a photo studio, then briefly a jazz music studio, and finally a dance studio. In 2010, Sabina Scarlat and Nicanor de Elia decided to move in and transform the space into a hybrid mix of the private and the public, the everyday and the unusual, the professional and the casual.

In a joyous, organised chaos, the venue is first developing a programme of workshops which responds to the primary need of the Brussels artistic community, and in particular its choreographic milieu, to have a workspace in which to develop daily training. A programme of residencies then begins to punctuate the weeks, with circus, theatre and dance companies arriving to work and show their work. The companies contribute to the costs of the venue by combining their residency time with a morning class or a weekend workshop and a presentation at the end of the residency. And as if that wasn't enough, over dinner at home, the idea was launched: the OFFestival ! A moment of visibility, a platform off the beaten paths in the middle of May, which offers sketches, previews, research into forms that are a little bit risky, workshops - creations / where artists from everywhere can come to take part in the festival's courses and workshops and/or present their creations.

From 2017, the thesis will give way to the synthesis, with the creation of the G.INCUBATOR (Garage29 - Incubator) which offering to emerging choreographers the possibility to experiment the relationship between the space, the audience and the dramaturgy, within experimental residency formulas for research and creation.

About the working team, Garage29 is an horizontal management that encourages personal development through networking. Between 2020 and 2023, the first team have put in place a caring framework, taking care to give everyone a special place and to stay as close as possible to the artists we support.

Between 2021 and 2023, it was a women's trio who worked on writing the application for structural funding and kept the GIN running at full speed. The three chicks, Sabina Scarlat, Clara Schmitt and Tahira Dahou, liked to think that there was no difference between them and between them and the artists. Everyone is invited to create, and above all to create together. They laid the foundations for a flexible way of working that would allow them to reinvent themselves. Everyone has their own speciality, but they don't like to be assigned into a role. They don't like to talk in terms of ‘coordinators’ or ‘people in charge’. They propose, associate, provoke and question, both with the artists and with the partners they work with. Their primary aim is dialogue in the service of emerging creation. Their secondary aim is to make it a celebration! In September 2023, Clara Schmitt leave the ship to continue at Ama Brussels.

Following its first subsidy contract by the FWB in 2024, the structure has the resources to develop and deepen its missions. A new team have been established, team who will have the pleasure of opening this new chapter in the venue and its programme for the 2024 to 2026 seasons.