Benjamin Verdonck is a wizard of the theatre of objects, which he reinvents with humour and tenderness with each new show. Inspired today by painter Kasimir Malevich and sculptor Alexander Calder, he becomes a puppeteer and, armed with nothing but strings, manipulates small cardboard triangles. Those forms appear, collide into and flee each other, creating a meticulous, simple, and fragile choreography.Each small piece of cardboard becomes an actor in its own right, a partner with whom the audience bonds. Emotion springs from those inanimate objects, whose only purpose seems utilitarian. They become playful and teasing, unruly and rebellious.We fear for them whenever they attempt a dangerous stunt, we laugh at their petty rivalries, we let go to enter a theatrical temporality in which the rationality of everyday life gives way to a unique logic, the logic of animated objects that dare us to dream. Time becomes different, calm and reassuring, filled with fantasy. We are amazed by Benjamin Verdonck's beautiful and perfectionist craft, and can better understand what hides behind the title of his show: “Not all who wander are lost.”
After graduating from the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp with a degree in acting, Benjamin Verdonck begins developing a very personal body of work that brings together different forms of performing arts. Theatre of text, dance, musical theatre, theatre of objects, performances in theatre venues or outside, artistic installations, etc. This in turns allows his outlook on the world to be at once gentle and forceful, often critical but always deeply human. He goes from stage to stage, from the smallest spaces to the largest, presenting shows in which politics play a large part, but always preferring questions to indoctrination. His “weapons:” poetry and humour. A partner of the Toneelhuis in Antwerp and the KVS in Brussels, he has worked with Ivo van Hove, Johan Simons, and Arne Sierens, before working on creations taking place in the public area, such as Hirondelle/Dooi Vogeltje/The Great Swallow, for which he spent seven days in a nest on the façade of the Brussels administrative Centre, thirty-two meters above ground, from which he shouted at passersby. At the Festival d'Avignon, he took part in Nine Finger, with Alain Platel and Fumiyo Ikeda, and presented Wewilllivestorm.
Distribution
By and with
Benjamin Verdonck
Iwan Van Vlierberghe
Sven Roofthooft
Sébastien Hendrickx
Han Stubbe
Louisa Vanderhaegen
Griet Stellamans
Production
Production Toneelhuis, KVS
Coproduction Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Bruxelles), Steirischer Herbst (Graz), NXTSTP avec le soutien du programme Culture de l'Union européenne