Shelly Shonk Fiffit

On 25 December 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope was launched. This infrared telescope is the largest and most sophisticated space telescope ever, allowing us to look far and deep into the universe as well as the past. Among other things, Webb will search for the "cosmic dawn": the light of the very first stars that formed shortly after the birth of the universe.

"Par l'espace l'univers me comprend et m'engloutit comme un point; par la pensée je le comprends." (Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 1670)

The infinity of the universe swallows us up, science is searching but our imagination is absolute. Even more than by the discovery of this telescope, Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe is fascinated by the ability with which man's thoughts can rise above himself and the universe. By his capacity for inventiveness. In this performance, Meirhaeghe links the high-tech of a telescope to the primitiveness of crafts and techniques.
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Travel companion on this trip beyond the limits of our bodies and time is Italian composer Caterina Barbieri. Barbieri makes electronic music, with "transformative and mind-expanding" potential. On the hypnotic 'Fantas' (from the magisterial 2019 album Ecstatic Computation), the performers, singers and dancers surrender to the inexplicable and unspeakable.

Shelly Shonk Fiffit becomes an intense and ecstatic visual and musical trip, through our inner world and the reaches of the cosmos. Fiffit!

directed by Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe
music Caterina Barbieri
set design and lighting Bart Van Merode, Zaza Dupont
dramaturgy Louise van den Eede
text Jori(k) Amit Galama
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by and with Fumiyo Ikeda, Bully Fae Collins, Eurudike De Beul, Alphonse Eklou, Nathan Felix-Rivot, Malique Fye, Hanako Hayakawa, Faust De Winne
vocal coaching Wouter Deltour
production Toneelhuis
coproduction Tandem Scène nationale Douai (FR)
with the support of the Belgian federal government's Tax Shelter, Look@Leo