'It is always a breath of fresh air to meet different people'

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Benjamin Vandewalle usually describes himself as a choreographer, but he is actually much more than that. The two central themes in his work are perception and movement. As city choreographer to be, he enjoys working in the public space and involving people from every corner of the world. ‘As an artist, I am becoming increasingly conscious of my social responsibility.’ A conversation with Benjamin Vandewalle for his Kaaitheater residency (2017-2021).

You took ballet lessons as a child, and you were later trained at PARTS. Your current work does not always have a link with dance, however. What is the role of dance in your current practice?

When people ask me what I do for a living, I spontaneously tell them I am a dancer or choreographer, even though it has been quite some time since I actually danced. My basic principle is ‘movement’: that which makes life possible and to which everything can be reduced. Dance is one particular expression of movement, but it is only one of the tools I use.
I love performing as such. When you sense that the performance is really clicking with the audience and there is intense concentration, those are the best drugs there are! I am convinces that if I were able to transmit my experiences as a dancer to an audience Matrix-style, dance would be the most successful medium ever. For me, the most important thing is the physical experience that plays on your nervous system and literally mixes you up. You undergo a production and don’t just read it cognitively. The text that you are given before a performance is important because it provides some background, but I think the experience is much more important.

You explore the possibilities of a city choreographer in public space. How do you give this idea content?

Going to the theatre is a conscious choice that you prepare for. That is not possible with art in the public space. For example, the view-boxes in Interview look perfectly innocent, but the experience – which is unexpected – can hit you very hard. As a self-titled city choreographer, I am particularly active in what I am provisionally calling the Art Carnival. It is a developmental tour throughout the city with various small performance moments. The end goal is a series of installations and interventions such as Interview and Birdwatching 4x4, which take place over several months. The aim is to investigate the signifi cance of being present in the public space over a long period of time, and to develop a relationship with the environment. In the same way that certain homeless people know everybody and co-determine the identity of the city, I also aim to become part of the cityscape.
I would actually like to interweave art with everyday life. That starts with mapping everything that’s going on. The movement between people, the movement of people within their world, or movement as such. One good example is Tracking Traces, which I tried for the Performing Space platform in Maastricht. For three days, I followed people with a large piece of chalk. The result was a beautiful sketch of how they move in the public space. The lines and drawings expanded right across the city. Curious people would sometimes come to the square because they had seen a line and wanted to keep following it. By ‘underlining’ this network of passers-by, passing by itself is no longer fleeting – and even stimulates the movement of others.

What does Brussels mean to you and to your work?

I recently bought an apartment here, so it definitely feels as though I am putting down deeper roots in the city. I would like to play a role here and make my own contribution. As an artist, I am becoming increasingly conscious of my social responsibility. Doctors take an oath that they will always help those in need because they have the requisite knowledge. Perhaps art can’t save lives, but I would like to share the knowledge I have acquired, if only because it is mostly taxpayers’ money that has enabled me to devote so much of my life to it.
For example, I teach in schools in Molenbeek. I’ve noticed that my contribution as an artist means something to those kids: you take people out of their daily reality and give them something creative to do. I make them reflect on things and offer them new forms of seeing.

You have made several films of your work in schools, and it is apparent that you do much more than just teach the children. What does this social engagement mean to you?

First and foremost, it is a lot of fun to do it. Thanks to these films you can share the intense process that you go through with the children with a larger audience. This brings a kind of insight about collaborating on a production: what does it mean to stand in front of an audience and reveal something of your inner life? It is not that the children suddenly become real dancers; it is about their experience: their self-confidence, the way they treat each other, facing and overcoming difficult moments in their lives, etc.
There is a great dearth of knowledge about the body and how to treat it. Ballgames are always fun too, but you can tell that children really want to get to know their body and to use this knowledge within the group dynamism. And for some of them it is a revelation: they flourish because they discover something that they are very good at.
After four years in the cocoon at PARTS, I wanted to see the world as it truly is. I spent five months in Africa as a teacher, based on the idea that they needed my help and I would improve the world. Of course you soon learn that that is not the case, that the world is much more complex than you think it is when you’re a teenager. I was encouraged to try things, though, and that implies the acknowledgement that it was just as much an experience for me as for them. The more bridges we can build, the more movement we can create between all the different contexts and environments.

As a choreographer, what is your attitude to your educational work, and to working with non-professional dancers?

It is always a breath of fresh air to meet different people. Working with volunteers is one of the ways that you can avoid becoming too isolated in your own little biotope as an artist. I think this is one of the perennial dangers of our field: it can all too easily shut itself off from the rest of the world.
And that is a shame because everyone view of the world is so different so we can learn so much from each other. For example, in the sound choreography Hear, it was great to be able to work with all these different people from Brussels from diverse social backgrounds. Both for them and for me. Everybody brings in their own perspective, and thus contributes to cross-fertilization not only of thought, but also of movement.

Why did you respond to the residence offer of the Kaaitheater – and what are your expectations?

I know that I function best when there is a certain continuity, but as an artist, relationships with cultural centres and institutions are very precarious. If a programme director with whom you have a good relationship leaves the centre, you lose part of your connection with the centre. It is thus very meaningful to be part of a centre and its community so that you get to know everybody better. The residence is especially helpful to make my artistic practice smoother; it helps to be able to work on a project over a longer period, which I need for the Art Carnival. I would also like to revisit the performer in me, who sometimes gets buried under the works in the public space. I sometimes feel as though I am merely at the service of my work.
The residence is an opportunity to experiment again. There is a chance of coming to the Kaaistudios, to work on things and to present them without them necessarily having to be programmed. It was only afterwards that I realized the enormous luxury of PARTS: you can fail, even very badly. When creation suddenly becomes your livelihood, you take far fewer risks. And therein lies the paradox because I have learned that making good work implies taking a lot of risks. Where there was too much control in my ‘lesser’ productions because of the preconceived recipe, my best works happen when I come into the studio empty-handed and start creating based on a number of disparate ideas. Until something emerges that I could not just have devised.

Benjamin Vandewalle in conversation with Lana Willems and Eva Decaesstecker