Ben en Vero

What happens when two dancers with very different lives meet? Veronique learned to dance at Platform K, a dance company for dancers with disabilities. Benjamin has disciplined his dancing body through years of ballet and contemporary training. They find each other in a dance that does not shy away from risk. They love to challenge each other, to push themselves physically, mentally, and spiritually to the limits of what they think they are capable of.

In dialogue with live musician Pak Yan, they build a universe of sound, movement, and text that impresses through its authenticity. Pak Yan intervenes in the encounter between Ben and Veronique from a self-built island of contact microphones, samplers, and electronic instruments. Together, the three of them search for a fusion of different styles and disciplines, where it is no longer clear
who supports, leads, or inspires whom.

They want to leave hierarchical structures based on physical abilities, gender, and age far behind. The more the two dancers and the musician discover their own creativity, the freer they feel, in their encounter with themselves and with each other. In doing so, do they also liberate contemporary dance performance from its conventions of formality and virtuosity? The result is, in any case, a surprisingly intimate and deeply human connection in dance and music—at times stubbornly confrontational, but often gentle, and always playful, light, layered, and fluid.

• Benjamin Vandewalle explores how movement, perception, and encounter shape one another. His work invites audiences to see, listen, and connect differently—both inside and beyond the theatre space. From choreographies like HEAR and Common Ground to installations such as Studio Cité and Off-track, he creates spaces where movement becomes a shared experience. 

• Véronique Mees is a dancer and performer. Since 2014, she has been closely associated with Platform K, an inclusive dance company for dancers with disabilities. There she develops her artistic practice in collaboration with a wide range of choreographers, dance teachers and dancers. She participated in the Summer Schools of les ballets C de la B (now La Geste) and P.A.R.T.S., and is actively involved in the inclusive dance lab at the Conservatory for Dance in Antwerp (deSingel), where she works with students and guest teachers in a mixed group of dancers with and without disabilities.

• Pak Yan Lau is a sound artist, improviser, musician, and composer born in Belgium with roots from Hong Kong and currently based in Brussels. She has developed a rich, dense, and captivating sound universe over the years, blending acoustic, electro-acoustic, and electronic approaches. Her work explores sound in a bewitching way, merging different sound sources with poetry, magic, and finesse.