Shelly Shonk Fiffit

Toneelhuis / Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe

In his new performance Shelly Shonk Fiffit, Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe taps into a theme as unfathomable as its title: the cosmic. As always, Meirhaeghe does not start from a text or delineated concept, but everything starts from certain fascinations and the dynamic group of performers he brings together.

Run time 90 minutes, no intermission
Genre theatre
Language English

Please note this performance contains strong flashes of light and there is very loud music at some points during the performance.

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!

Credits

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