‍Chapters of Celebration is a dance marathon, an energetic performance that pays tribute to the celebrating body. It is also where director Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe and composer Wouter Deltour reunite in their shared passion for classical music and ritual. Following the acclaimed Madrigals, which they performed in DE SINGEL’s Red Hall, Chapters of Celebration is an infectious antidote to individualism.

The musical thread is Folies d’Espagne, a 15th-century musical theme from Iberia that lies at the beating heart of classical music history, thanks to adaptations by composers such as Bach, Vivaldi and Rachmaninov. Deltour weaves the various compositions into a dazzling, contemporary whole. Conversely, Meirhaeghe asks six dancers and six choreographers to liberate the celebrating body, in ‘chapters’ that cross baroque dance with ballroom, jazz and rave. Like archaeologists of festivities, they go in search of the original freedom and madness of human communities. Thus, ringing out in Chapters of Celebration are the political, ritual echoes of exuberance that humanity seems to have lost along the way. So we don’t forget to keep dancing, always.

Commissioned by DE SINGEL and Europalia, Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe created Chapters of Celebration.