‘Paradis’

The starting point: an accidental tragedy. LOD composer Thomas Smetryns purchases an old photograph of a young female dancer online. Later a complete photo album appears in his letterbox; life as a puzzle.

How many ways can a person fall? From paradise, youth, a relationship, language… How can you prepare yourself for a chagrin that is yet to come? How much sentimentality do we need in order to really empathise?  

Hof van Eede, composer Thomas Smetryns and Ensemble Besides go on a series of exercises in empathy, between everyday tragedy and the unintentionally comic, between documentary and fiction. This isn’t an opera, there are no singing characters. This is music as a strategy for controlling emotions, or blocking them. Because how much soundtrack can real life tolerate?