Art Happens

His thinking about music theater and performance and letting a vision resonate in his work, originated within Toneelacademie Maastricht. He graduated in 2018 with The Ballet (in collaboration with Vooruit, Opera Vlaanderen, De Munt and NTGent), a performance he created together with dancer and muze Emiel Vandenberghe (Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe). The work shows the suffering and the separation of two lovers and performers.He found his way into opera, not coincidentally the medium where both art forms come together. At Opera Ballet Vlaanderen he created A Revue in 2020, a visually stunning spectacle show which was selected for FlemishTheaterFestival 2021.

In 2021 Meirhaeghe made the ritual concert Spectacles, where he turns, together with producer Laurens Mariën and dancer Hanako Hayakawa, a concert into a theatrical experience. 

MADRIGALS premiered on January 21, 2022. Meirhaeghe molds Claudio Monteverdi’s Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi, and he dares to mix it with the experimental pop of Jesse Kanda, who collaborates with Björk, Arca and FKA Twigs. 

In September 2021, Meirhaeghe opened the opening show of Berlin Fashion Week directed by Etienne Rosso. He also gave the MOMU exhibition E/MOTION a performative character. 

Meirhaeghe is has been part of the artistic direction of Toneelhuis since season 22-23. His first creation for Toneelhuis was Ode to a Love Lost (2023). This production, based on Meirhaeghe’s own personal love story, is set in the deep crater of a heart.

In the fall of 2023, at the invitation of Volksbϋhne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz to make his own version of the creation story, Meirhaeghe came up with the overwhelming Death Drive – Everything Everyone Ever Did.

In the beginning of 2024 at Toneelhuis, he made Shelly Shonk Fiffit, featuring a replica of the James Webb space telescope, the music of Caterina Barbieri and picturesque movements.

In December of 2024 in Schauspielhaus Bochum, Give Up die alten Geister will have its premiere. In this piece, Meirhaeghe teams up with Fumiyo Ikeda to perform a four-hands piano version of Mozart’s famous Requiem.

In the spring of 2025 at Toneelhuis, Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe will be directing Mantike, an evocative monologue written by Louise Van den Eede and performed by Marjan De Schutter, about the art of prophecy in the face of an approaching apocalypse.

As of 2022, Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe is co-artistic director of Toneelhuis, together with Lisaboa Houbrechts, Gorges Ocloo, FC Bergman and Olympique Dramatique.