Cultural Compass: A legacy of ecstasy, bold Bourla festival and timeless protest in opera

Every Sunday, Belga English picks its favourite events from the cultural agenda. This week: A riveting look at the artistic history and practices around ecstasy, Bourla offers a rousing limbo season between renovation and re-location, Luigi Nono's opera Intolleranza 1960 confronts the audience and colours get questioned about sustainability.

Ecstasy & Orewoet, 10 May - 9 November, Museum PARCUM, Leuven

What does ecstasy mean today versus what it meant 700 years ago? This new exhibition explores the age-old human longing for transcendence through the lens of both medieval mysticism and contemporary art.

In the 13th and 14th centuries, figures like Hadewijch and Lutgardis van Tongeren gave voice to “orewoet”, a burning, passionate yearning for union with God. Within the structured world of Catholic mysticism, ecstasy was a spiritual goal, deeply embedded in ritual and devotion.

Today, that same longing for connection and rapture takes new forms. Freed from religious frameworks, people now seek ecstasy through music, art, sport, meditation and psychedelics. Philosopher Charles Taylor describes this shift as a “spiritual supernova” resulting in new ways to experience the divine.

Featuring works by Marina Abramović, Jeremy Shaw, Laure Prouvost and others, Ecstasy & Orewoet invites visitors to reflect on how mystical and modern paths toward ecstasy may still echo one another.

Stand Bye Bourla, Until 27 June, Antwerp

The long-anticipated renovation of Antwerp’s iconic Bourla Theatre has been postponed by a year, giving audiences one final season in the historic building. Originally set to relocate to a temporary venue in the Eilandje district, the Toneelhuis company will now remain at the Bourla for 2025. The associated festival, once titled Bye Bye Bourla, has been aptly renamed Stand Bye Bourla.

^{Bruegel, Lisaboa Houbrechts © TONEELHUIS}

Running from early May to late June, the festival celebrates the building’s grandeur with two months of performances, culminating in a rooftop party. What was meant as a farewell has transformed into a preview—an unexpected encore in the theatre’s storied history.

Among the season’s highlights is Bruegel, a richly layered production by Lisaboa Houbrechts. It reimagines the world of painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder through the lens of Mad Meg, the misunderstood, hell-bound woman in his famous painting. Houbrechts gives Meg agency, casting her as a rescuer of lost objects rather than a thief, and builds a surreal journey through time and myth.

Equally bold is A Revue by Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe, a genre-defying spectacle that fuses cabaret, opera and performance art into a retro-futurist fever dream. The piece imagines how current classics might be rediscovered and reinterpreted by future civilisations, whether human, robotic or alien.

The Lieutenant of Inishmore returns, a brutal satire by Martin McDonagh. This dark comedy, performed in a chaotic hybrid of Dutch, Flemish, French, English and German, skewers terrorism, masculinity and violence in a story that begins with a dead cat and spirals into mayhem. Think Tarantino for the stage: shocking, hilarious and uncomfortably real.

Intolleranza 1960, 6 - 18 May, Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Ghent

Luigi Nono’s Intolleranza 1960 is a powerful outcry against violence, oppression and the rising tide of intolerance. Written in the aftermath of World War II, and haunted by Hiroshima, colonial wars and fascist resurgence, the opera follows a migrant worker returning home, only to be swept into a world of protest, police brutality and political awakening.

^{© OPERA BALLET VLAANDEREN}

In Benedikt von Peter’s visceral staging for Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, the audience is placed on stage, immersed among singers and the orchestra. This physical proximity makes Nono’s music theatre a deeply confrontational experience and one that calls for solidarity and the courage to imagine a better world.

Though composed over 60 years ago, Intolleranza 1960 feels strikingly current. In an era marked by war, closed borders and social division, Nono’s work is a stark reminder that these struggles are not new and they demand to be seen, heard and reckoned with.

Colour: Seeing Beyond Pigment, 8 May - 24 August, Z33, Hasselt

Colour is everywhere: our food, our clothes, our cities. Yet few stop to consider where pigments come from, or at what cost. The global dye industry is some of the most staggering pollution on the planet. In response, Colour: Seeing Beyond Pigment brings together scientists, designers and artists to explore more sustainable, nature-inspired alternatives, with a special focus on melanin.

Melanin is the pigment responsible for skin colour and it also exists in the animal kingdom, offering a remarkable array of hues and optical effects. Think of the iridescent wings of butterflies or the shimmering feathers of a peacock. These structural colours, created not by pigment but by the way light interacts with microstructures, offer a potential key to cleaner dye production.

One project presents a ceramic tribute to ancient Mayan traditions, using melanin-based pigments to explore cultural heritage and natural materials. Another, featuring delicate origami beetles, draws attention to biodiversity loss in Flanders. A third piece, Coral Colours, vividly illustrates the impact of climate change on marine ecosystems through striking visual interpretations.

Additional works include a series of aluminium wall pieces that change appearance with shifting light, exploring materiality and perception. One installation applies synthetic melanin to glass, creating shimmering effects that play with transparency and reflection. Other pieces delve into themes of concealment, touch and the uncanny, using reflective surfaces and organic shapes to provoke sensory and emotional responses.
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(MOH)

^{#FlandersNewsService | Bruegel, Lisaboa Houbrechts © PHOTO KURT VAN DER ELST}

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