Give Up, Old Ghosts!

In Give Up, Old Ghosts! Meirhaeghe guides us through the backstage areas of memory. Our ability to retain and pass on collective knowledge forms the arc of the play. 

The crux of it is Mozart’s unfinished Requiem. Two pianists, formerly a teacher and pupil, play it live. How is something remembered, learned and passed on? When does the past start to haunt you? Do we need to let old ghosts go so the future can begin at last?

Quoting from her dance repertoire, Fumiyo Ikeda depicts what a body remembers. Inspired by the queer resistance texts of Ursula Le Guin, the performers explore how to pave the way to a future without violence and oppression, but with magic. Scenographer Jozef Wouters - who was inspired by a bewitched house - transforms the stage into an echo chamber in which sounds and images from the present and past intermingle.