Ode to a Love Lost takes place in the deep crater of a heart, bathed in the afterglow of an intense love.
The starting point of this show is Meirhaeghe's own personal love story. In 2018 he made The Ballet together with his then lover and muse. That mythologised relationship still fascinates Meirhaeghe. Think of the love stories between Diaghilev and Nijinsky, Wilde and Bosie, Warhol and Basquiat and all the other passionate relationships in which art and life intertwine.
Here, Meirhaeghe appears on stage himself, entering into an intimate artistic dialogue with performers Jelle Haen and Désirée Cerocién. He is accompanied live by Berlin singer-songwriter Finn Ronsdorf on soul and blues piano.
Ode to a Love Lost is a hymn to decline and loss, but also a song of hope. There is music in ruin, future in melancholy. With a love lost as the driving force, a deep crater as the landscape and a dual relation with the norm, Meirhaeghe literally moves towards liberation.
Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe created a furore as a director and a countertenor in his own operatic musical projects (A Revue, Madrigals). He challenges the classical repertoire in his work: dancers become singers, singers become dancers. Looking for a different kind of virtuosity, Meirhaeghe calls for unashamed access to big emotions, while offering pleasure to semi-skilled practitioners. This is his first production as a resident Toneelhuis artist.
Fire of Love
Toneelhuis @ De Cinema
Sunday 22 January 8:30 PM
Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe highlights Sara Dosa's documentary Fire of Love, a romantic and tragic exploration of breathtaking volcanic regions with spectacular (archival) footage. After the screening, he discusses the film with Kristof van Baarle, dramaturge for Ode to a Love
Lost.
Toneelhuis @ De Cinema
Sunday 22 January 8:30 PM
Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe highlights Sara Dosa's documentary Fire of Love, a romantic and tragic exploration of breathtaking volcanic regions with spectacular (archival) footage. After the screening, he discusses the film with Kristof van Baarle, dramaturge for Ode to a Love
Lost.
“In Ode to a Love Lost, we explore the energy of the 'afterglow', as researcher Louise van den Eede called it. The shimmering after a catastrophe. The afterglow of the big bang. The hush
right after your heart breaks. Meanwhile, in the scenography, this has been translated into a gigantic wind chime of 8,000 steel pipes, above a carpet that covers the entire stage. The old and the new converge in that image. I like to compare my creative process to a centrifuge: I throw the past, present and future into it, and a show comes out of it.
Credits
director
- Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe
by and with
- Désirée Cerocién
- Finn Ronsdorf
- Jelle Haen
- Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe
scenography, light
- Bart van Merode
- Zaza Dupont
costume design
- Oumar Dicko
research
- Louise van den Eede
dramaturgy
- Kristof Van Baarle
choreography coaching
- Hanako Hayakawa
vocal coaching
- Wouter Deltour
body coaching
- Sten Dielen
video
- Charles Dhondt
carpet design
- Victor Verhelst
internship
- Felix Deckers
- Malique Fye
- Maria Zandvliet
dispersion
- ART HAPPENS
production
- Toneelhuis
with the support of
- de Tax Shelter van de Belgische federale overheid
- Casa Kafka Pictures Tax Shelter
