Dance performance & screening
Almost Cinema Festival, Vooruit, Ghent (Belgium)
Vantage Point is a combination of dance, performance, theater and video art. The dance piece opens with an inversion of traditional perspective: the audience walks around freely on the stage, as the performers, dressed in bizarre costumes reminiscent of the baroque period, descend from the royal loge, into the audience space and finally, onto the stage. What follows is a baroque duet choreography on-stage, with the audience moving back and forth, trying not to walk in the performers’ paths.
In the second part, the choreography creates the impression of two simultaneous solo scores, each on the other part of the stage. The audience walks around on-stage, trying different standpoints to look at the choreography. When the projection of a live camera finally comes in, it is clear that both solo scores are actually entwined: viewed from the perfect position (which is occupied by the camera at the back of the stage), the movements of both solos create the illusion of the dancers interacting with each other.
By making the central perspective of this camera inaccessible to an audience that is free to position itself, Vantage Point aims to unmask the power that comes with that position: the power of perspective.
