Ode to a Love Lost is set in the crater of a heart. The starting point of this performance is a personal love story by Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe. He made The Ballet in 2018 together with his then lover and muse. This mythologised relationship to this day inspires Meirhaeghe. Think of love stories between Diaghilev and Nijinsky, Wilde and Boosie, Warhol and Basquiat and all the passionate but unrequited loves that have not survived the struggle of aesthetics.

In Ode to a Lost Love , Meirhaeghe is on stage as a dancer and enters into an intimate artistic dialogue with a number of young choreographers. The focus is on his own body, influenced by Western standards and beauty ideals from art and advertising. Driven by a lost love, he literally moves towards liberation. All this with live music from Berlin singer/songwriter Finn Ronsdorf.

• Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe is creating a furore as a director, contra tenor and performer with his uncompromising hybrid performances that bring together performance, costumes, personality and many musical styles. He recently became one of Toneelhuis' regular creators. With Ode to a Lost Love, we welcome Meirheaghe for the first time on the Kaaitheater programme - this year as part of the PeriferiK collaboration.

"In 'Ode to a Love Lost', performing artist Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe puzzles the pieces of his broken heart together. His grief unfolds in images and music of beauty and stillness."  – De Tijd

"Love in the widest possible sense. As vulnerable as it is threatening, that is Ode to a love lost ." – Het Nieuwsblad 

'I think in my work I am increasingly looking for that kind of radical intimacy.' – De Standaard