For Off-track, dancer-choreographer Benjamin Vandewalle designed four periscopic devices that offer four different perspectives on the landscape passing by: a choreographic performance in which the spectator plays the leading role. EUROPALIA asked Benjamin Vandewalle a few questions about this special project.
The installation Off-track fits the festival’s theme TRAINS & TRACKS perfectly. Can you elaborate on that?
Benjamin Vandewalle (BVDW): Off-track reflects the train’s potential as an installation: passengers take their places in a gigantic camera that allows them to observe the landscape from their individual perspectives.
What associations does the ‘train’ evoke in you?
BVDW: The train is also an installation, a kind of enlarged camera obscura. In addition, time stands still. It’s an in-between space.
Off-track plays with people’s perceptions, why this interest?
BVDW: We perceive life from our own perspective, but I strongly believe that it’s good to show that different realities exist side by side. It can even be refreshing to turn our day-to-day view of reality upside down for a moment or create an ‘overview effect’. You will also find a connection to dance in all my installations. It’s always about physicality, about the connections between the spiritual and the physical.
— Ostend-Eupen train
06 11 2021 - 11:00
IC 510 Bruges (10:57) - Eupen (13:43)
IC 537 Eupen (14:17) - Bruges (17:01)
05 03 2022 - 11:00
IC 510 Ostend (10:44) - Eupen (13:43)
IC 537 Eupen (14:17) - Brussels-Central (15:55)
02 04 2022 - 11:00
03 04 2022 - 11:00
16 04 2022 - 11:00
07 05 2022 - 11:00
Commissioned by EUROPALIA TRAINS & TRACKS