Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,
Their babies at their backs and their poor luggage,
Plodding to the ports and coasts for transportation,
And that you sit as kings in your desires,
Authority quite silent by your brawl,
And you in ruff of your opinions clothed;
What had you got? I’ll tell you: you had taught
How insolence and strong hand should prevail,
How order should be quelled; and by this pattern
Not one of you should live an aged man,
For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought,
With self same hand, self reasons, and self right,
Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes
Would feed on one another….
Say now the king
Should so much come too short of your great trespass
As but to banish you, whether would you go?
What country, by the nature of your error,
Should give you harbour? go you to France or Flanders,
To any German province, to Spain or Portugal,
Nay, any where that not adheres to England,
Why, you must needs be strangers: would you be pleased
To find a nation of such barbarous temper,
That, breaking out in hideous violence,
Would not afford you an abode on earth,
Whet their detested knives against your throats,
Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God
Owed not nor made not you, nor that the claimants
Were not all appropriate to your comforts,
But chartered unto them, what would you think
To be thus used? this is the strangers case;
And this your mountainish inhumanity. 

Sir Thomas More, William Shakespeare

Needcompany opened the new season with performances of The blind poet at the Venice Biennale, the Festival Internacional in Buenos Aires, and Festival TNT – Terrassa Noves Tendències. This is what the press said:

"Along with Isabella's room, this company proved to us that it has incredible artistic qualities. Today, with its last production, The blind poet, it impresses us once again with its extremely strong and contemporary techniques. Jan Lauwers designs a dramaturgy full of singularities, where storytelling, dance, music and imagery mesh together." - La Nación (Argentina)

"The blind poet is an integral aesthetic experience that transcends the stage and its conventions." - Clarín (Buenos Aires)

The upcoming tour venues are the Europäisches Theaterfestival Eurothalia (Timisoara), Festiwal Konfrontacje Teatralne (Lublin), Theaterfestival Spielart (Munich), Scène Nationale de Sète et du Bassin de Thau (Sète) and Teatro Central (Seville).

Maarten Seghers was a guest at the Festival ImPulsTanz (Vienna) with his solo piece What do you mean what do you mean and other pleasantries and will also be performing it at the Theaterfestival Spielart in Munich. In the meantime he is also working on a new production that will premiere at Monty (Antwerp) in March 2016. Centraal in deze hedendaagse Pinokkio staat de samenwerking met vocalist Fritz Welch, cellist Simon Lenski, drummer Nicolas Field en danser Mohamed Toukabri.

  "Seghers twists and crawls, and tries to get a grip on the speakers which are constantly producing sounds, philosophises about love, life and especially about that 'darned password' he simply can’t remember and which, exactly because of this, becomes a real running gag. The result is a virtuoso-confounded, yet cleverly thought-out 60-minute conglomerate of styles with an anti-hero who you can’t help but letting in your heart in the end." - kurier.at (Austria)

OHNO COOPERATION presented new video work and a performance at the SeptemberFestival organized by the School van Gaasbeek. 

In December, MaisonDahlBonnema will be reviving Rhythm Conference feat. Inner Splits at Monty. This concert performance is a celebration of life that leads to an enumeration of everything in the realisation that we will have to take leave of it.

In November, Jan Lauwers and Elke Janssens will be speaking at the "Turning Point of Theatre" conference at the Shanghai Theatre Academy, for which our thanks to Professor Hans-Georg Knopp.