Hello Dear Friend,

Just a few thoughts as the magnolias bloom in our garden.

1.Things are better with Needcompany than with a lot of other concerns in the world. We're working, and what’s more, we’re doing so with great conviction, vigour and persistence, and we're well received. We've also been granted time. Not many people are fortunate enough to be afforded time. So, consequently, we're using that time carefully. With an acute sense for detail. Because making art is always about the detail. We've known for a long time that works of art are patient and that they don't care whether or not they're well known. That works of art aren’t worried about not being understood. And that's why we're confident. But the world is moving at a strange pace nowadays. Slow has become an unpopular concept in art and is met with scorn. It's got to make money! It's got to show results! It has to be immediately and always understood! It has to be ‘engaged'! So there we are… It was Rilke who said that there's always a long span between great art and the time in which it was created. Works of art are things of the future. But what if the future itself is outpaced?

2. Paul Valéry says that memory is the flame that outlives the fuel. Our mind is the storehouse for that memory. Art is in fact always a component of a memory. The more limited the memory, the more we think we’re encountering novelty. When we think it's something new, it's usually because there is a lack of knowledge of what is. Theatre is perhaps the only medium in which the history of the memory cannot be taken into account in its performance. Perhaps theatre is a medium without memory and is therefore so trivial. The captivating Hans Ullrich Obrist said at the world-famous - yes, let's show our pride here for a moment - Kaaitheater that we should archive time-based art. I understand that, and we do so in fact, but I know that it's just an attempt at blurring the truth.

3. Brussels. What on earth is going on with that city! From a cultural perspective things are looking grim. They’ve blown the whistle on the Kaaitheater, De Munt is due to be drastically scaled back, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker is being ousted, whilst people came to the opening at the splendid Wiels 1600 (!), the KVS is being turned into a community centre, and the most powerful party in Flanders regards Brussels a bit of a nuisance. And all this whilst the theatres are packed. The Kunstenfestivaldesarts is yet to kick off and already there are waiting lists for several performances. This city, according to that very same Obrist, is currently regarded in the world of culture as the most important city in Europe. Brussels is where it's at. And there are some very good people who are working very hard to achieve this, including Paul Dujardin at BOZAR, Dirk Snauwaert at Wiels, Guy Gypens and Katleen Van Langendonck at the Kaaitheater and many more. But for how long?

4. What do you mean the KVS is being turned into a community centre? Jan Goossens is one of the few artistic directors who, having worked very hard for some ten years, believes that that’s long enough and is handing over ‘his’ théâtre flamand with great pluck. Respect where it’s due. Unfortunate, though, that the theatre's board of directors has had to select a new curator 'unanimously' without proper grasp of the situation. What a shame that they ignored the cautious advice from experts in the field. And what a shame that no one in the media has asked questions about the future of the KVS.

Oh, the Needcompany ensemble has officially been named the best in the world. If you want us, come and get us.

JL

It's been 12 years since a performance by Jan Lauwers premiered in Belgium and Needcompany is proud to present its latest creation The blind poet at Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels.

Jan Lauwers takes the family tree of each of his performers as a starting point and writes a new history of the world based on their different nationalities, cultures and languages. He travels back thousands of years to consider the notion of identity in today’s multicultural Europe. The blind poet is a show about strong women who throw stones and end up burnt at the stake. About a crusader in armour that is too small for him. Lauwers quotes the work of the blind Syrian poet Abdel Al-Ma’arri spanning the 10th and 11th centuries, and of Wallada bint al-Mustakfi, an Andalusian poet from the 11th century. Their work evokes a time when women held positions of power and atheism was commonplace, when Paris was just a small provincial town and Charles the Great was a notorious illiterate. But history is written by the victors. By men. How much has the history we know actually been determined by lies, chance encounters and events along the way? How does an ever-surviving body move through time?

After the opening performances in Brussels, the show travels on to the co-producers KunstFestSpiele Hannover and Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt) and in September to El Festival Internacional de Buenos Aires, where “Isabella's Room” is also on the bill.

In August The blind poet features in the theatre programme of the Venice Biennale, where Jan Lauwers is due to give a masterclass.

In June Needcompany opens the Foreign Affairs festival at the Berliner Festspiele with The Time Between Two Mistakes, a commentary on Peter Brook’s ‘The Empty Space’, delving into the Needcompany archive. The visual imagery of Grace Ellen Barkey and Jan Lauwers are brought face to face, with dramaturgical accompaniment from the music of Maarten Seghers. Both the spectator’s perspective and the artist’s role in society are questioned and clarified. Needcompany is inviting around a dozen guest performers from all over the world for this grand party.

The French tour of MUSH-ROOM by Grace Ellen Barkey with original music by The Residents, and Odd? But true!, by Lemm&Barkey continues in Mulhouse, Revest-les-Eaux, Grasse and Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume.

The solo performance What do you mean what do you mean and other pleasantries by Maarten Seghers has been selected for the [8:tension] Young Choreographers' Series at the Festival ImPulsTanz (Vienna). Maarten Seghers has been offered an Artist in Residence post there. His performance will be shown at the Schauspielhaus and is nominated for the Prix Jardin d'Europe.

Rhythm Conference feat. Inner Splits by MaisonDahlBonnema was in Bergen (NO) and in Paris in February and was very well received by its audiences. In December 2015 it will be performed at Monty (Antwerp). .

"It's tempting to compare the experience with a wet bar of soap that repeatedly slips through the spectator's hands: every time you think you're getting a grip on the text and what's happening on stage, the performance takes an unexpected turn. As such, Dahl and Bonnema have been largely successful in their artistic vision for the performance: 'We say no to existing forms and conventions and look for the monstrous and what you can't portray in an attempt to escape the predominant sameness of capitalism’. "
- scenekunst.no

We welcome Toon Geysen to Needcompany as a new colleague.