What does it mean to be human in a world dominated by control and destruction?
Oa poses this question in its own idiosyncratic way. Oa is a performance without beginning or end, aiming to create an abstraction of the world – the great O – where abstraction is made of the human being. That human ends up entirely and in isolation as an abstraction of themselves – the small, excluded a – lost in senseless questions without answers.

A space as a co-performer
The performance was created specifically for the Chapter House of the abbey. The imposing space forms a powerful contrast with the vulnerability of the four bodies attempting to fill it. The result is an intense play of presence and absence, of closeness and distance.

A visual inspiration
The artistic process was nourished by three grandmasters: the layered color fields of Rothko, the dramatic light of Caravaggio, and the unsettling distortions of Francis Bacon. Their influences are palpable in the movement, the scenography, and the text – a choreography of images, words, and silence.

A title as a choreographic blueprint
The title Oa is more than a name. The fifteenth letter O towers above the first letter a – together sixteen, together seven. This symbolism forms the beating heart of the performance, where number and language merge into a new, visual work.

A unique collaboration
Oa is a creation by DeadPoet vzw in collaboration with the Saint Peter’s Abbey in Ghent and runs in parallel with the exhibition Beauty as Resistance. It is an invitation to reflect, to pause, and to resist.

Saint-Peter's Abbey Ghent

27 and 28 December 2025 

continuously from 11:00 AM till 5:00 PM