Performance, theatre of objects, puppets… Your theatre combines

different forms of representation. What was your initial desire?

Benjamin Verdonck: For a very long time I have wanted to create a show

I could carry around in a box. It was a boyhood dream, born of an encounter

with the Calder circus, with its tiny characters; what I like about Alexander

Calder is that there is always a playful dimension to his work, even as an adult

he has kept this childish side. He is always looking for something. I believe in

the subversive side of games and invention. The first model I built was a

one-square-metre square, within which I came up with movements. I brought it

along to some friends’ to play a miniature show. I then made it bigger, since

I wanted to play in front of about sixty people. I also wanted to build something

abstract, so that the audience would enter a dimension without any

relationship to the world outside the theatre, without anything to do with their

own personal stories. Malevich is another one of my influences. Small

triangles are the simplest of abstract figures, and I didn’t want there to be any

reference to actual objects. Those are first and foremost figures created by

three lines which, thanks to their triangular form, can move.
 

Are you the one manipulating them?

I make them move from stage left to stage right and back thanks to a system

of threads I pull on to create a choreography. I consider that my objects

“dance.” My small theatre is minimalist, it’s about as big as a table, but it also

has a fly system, and a backstage area.
 

Why use cardboard?

Because it is a very simple material, with its own energy. I don’t pay much

attention to what you might call the quality of a material, and I always choose

them based on what I expect when I start working with them: their strength,

sometimes their flexibility, their mobility, the ease with which I can move them,

the poetry of its movements. Cardboard is easy to use, I could cut it up easily

and try many different things one after the other. It’s also a “poor” material,

which children use easily. I like the idea of this poor material being

transcended by the work I do with it, by the illusion it helps me create. And it’s

also a “fragile” material, one I treat with the utmost care, because I take care

of all my performers. They have special boxes reserved for them that protect

them from two main threats: the hazards of transportation, and variations in

temperature, to which they are very sensitive. It requires me to pay close

attention, to be extra vigilant, because we have already done many shows

together; I have to check before each show that they are in top form so as to

avoid accidents. I really like this very mindful and meticulous relationship

I have to build with my objects. It’s a game between us. I like having to pay

close attention to them, especially when I’m working with objects that aren’t

considered rare or expensive, but simple and “poor.” The wood that makes up

my small puppet theatre is also not high-quality wood, and almost untreated.
 

Do you feel like those small cardboard triangles are your partners,

the way other actors with whom you would share a stage could be?

I can tell the difference between an actual actor and my small pieces of

cardboard, so of course the relationship isn’t the same. However, we have

played a lot together, so to me they are almost alive, I know them. And from

time to time, they play pranks on me, rebel against my commands… When

I think they are good, when they dance well, I’m proud of them. To be clearer,

I would say that within the score I wrote, and to which I want to adhere

faithfully every day, the way a good musician would, there can be small

variations. I can refine a movement, slow things down or speed them up a

little, change things to fix small mistakes I made in the conception and become

aware of during the show.
 

Could we then say that you are as much a puppeteer as a

choreographer, a craftsman as much as an artist?

In that I give life to small inanimate triangles, sure. But what really motivates

me is to propose a game that I then share with the audience. I sometimes feel

that the audience worries about the same things I do when I’m manipulating

my triangles. They get nervous for the same reasons: “Let’s hope this fragile

little piece of cardboard doesn’t waver…” What I do is attempt things, try things

out, do exercises; I offer a metaphor for what I believe an artist’s work should

be, with its inherent risks, but also a desire to go further. And before that,

before entering the stage, when I’m making my objects, I’m a craftsman. I like

to show people how I work as I’m working. I don’t hide, I stay in plain sight,

everyone in the audience can understand how I work, what techniques I use.

I think that contributes to creating emotion in the audience.
 

And in your relationship to time and to precision, did you work for a long

time on the preparation of this show?

It took a long time. Coming up with how to make the objects move didn’t take

long, but the actual movements took a while to define. Since I had decided on

a number of constraints—a very small stage, fragile pieces of cardboard that

would be manipulated with thread—it took a while to solve the problems they

posed. In fact, I wrote a real choreographic score, almost following a

mathematical principle. And so as not to rely on a crutch of any kind, I decided

not to use any actual music; there isn’t any rhythm to the show save for the

movements of the triangles. I think the audience is surprised at first by this

absence of sound, then slowly they enter this silent world. There is nothing to

distract us, except perhaps the tweeting of birds or the sound threads make as

they slide. An entire world is created out of those faint noises, and it helps the

audience focus. This is reinforced by the fact that there aren’t that many of us

in that room to begin with. I know that beyond a hundred people, it becomes

harder for the audience to focus on my particular brand of minimalism.

Interview conducted by Jean-François Perrier / Translation Gaël Schmidt-Cléach