Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe & Wouter Deltour / Muziektheater Transparant

'Chapters of Celebration' is a full-evening dance marathon, in which a party museum is collectively constructed. The musical common thread is La Folia (‘craziness’) or Folies d’Espagne, a 15th-century musical theme from Iberia that hammers like a heartbeat through classical musical history, thanks to adaptations by composers such as Bach, Vivaldi, and Rachmaninov.

Composer and pianist Wouter Deltour transforms the various compositions into a dazzling, contemporary whole. Director Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe asks seven renowned choreographers to liberate the revelling body, in chapters that cross baroque dance with ballroom, jazz and rave. As archaeologists of celebration, along with seven singing dancers they seek out the original freedom and craziness of human communities. Thus in Chapters of Celebration we hear the political, ritual echoes of exuberance that humanity seems to have lost along the way.

Following the acclaimed Madrigals, director Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe and composer Wouter Deltour encounter one another afresh in their shared love of classical music and ritual. Chapters of Celebration is a powerful reminder of the universal need to celebrate, an infectious antidote to individualism. So we don’t forget to always keep on dancing.