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Hello 'I’m sitting by the swimming pool of my luxury hotel in Santiago de Chile. It’s December and 32 °C. After an intense day of rehearsals with the phenomenal actress Gabriella Hernandez, I’m indulging myself with a vodka tonic and watching the beautiful people swim.' That’s how I started a newsletter a while back. I wanted to use a little exaggeration to give you the wrong idea. About what does and doesn’t happen with funding for the arts. But okay, confession time: it wasn’t a luxury hotel, no one was swimming, and my glass was long on ice and short on vodka. I wanted to write about how impressive Santiago was and the turbulent revolutionary days in Chile. And how I went out for a walk – right after the vodka tonic – and got teargas in my eyes. The protesters weren't wearing facemasks. It’s like everything’s backwards here, I thought at the time. I was held back by a drunken anarchist in a red and black uniform, holding some sort of Viking shield, clutching a metal pipe in his right fist, who shouted the words no parasan at me from a mouth that had no teeth in it. He saw me staring at his toothless mouth and then said: 'I left my teeth at home. That way they can’t smash ‘em.' He left me for what I am – not worth the trouble – and went on with his quest for liberation. I also wanted to write about Santiago a Mil festival, where 'a mil' refers to the ticket price, namely 1000 pesos (just a little over one euro), so that everyone could come. Sometimes as many as twenty performances a night. Remarkable. Gabriella, at 83, is also remarkable. She comes to the rehearsals in her 4x4, with an unlit joint hanging out of her mouth. 'That’s for after the run-through,' she says. She’s told me about how she slid around in the mud at Woodstock in ‘69, and that she used to make love to Chet Baker. After three weeks, I asked her to marry me, but she said I was too old for her. By the way, the premiere was a big hit. That’s all what I was going to write about, and then the war in Europe broke out, and on television, they said that now they have these miniaturised nuclear weapons that are so much easier to use than the regular ones. I find myself wondering what the anti-vaxxers are going to protest about now. Or the gilets jaunes. Or the cultural sector when the funding starts to dry up. And I’m not even cynical about it. When I don’t understand it, I leaf through some of the many history books in my atelier. Trying to find peace of mind. Can we still make art? I find Thomas Hobbes, where he wrote, somewhere in the middle of the 17th century: ‘...there is no place for Industry... no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.’ That actually puts my mind at ease some. We found our way out of that. In Hobbes’ time, despite the pandemic and the violence of many European wars, they also made very good art. Through all that misery, art did not end up on the scrapheap. Despite the demands of the powerful to reshape art into propaganda or use it as a weapon of repression, art never surrendered. There have always been artists who resisted, refusing to change. Because art is still art and politics is politics. Whatever else people think. Ukraine is between a rock and a hard place. The people there are certainly standing up alone. But I know that in Kiev, they make very good theatre. Those people are carrying guns now. And the theatres are probably closed or being used as shelters. But this will pass. They'll open again. And ask the difficult questions again.
I wonder if I’d be able to put a bullet in the head of a Russian soldier and then after that make a beautiful drawing of my sweet little granddaughter Song. I’m afraid I could. To be or not to be is the hardest question in Ukraine right now. But we’ll keep asking the questions. Regards Jan | ||
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WHAT'S GOING ON? | ||
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Since the last newsletter in 2021, we haven’t been sitting around waiting. If we pull back a little further and look at the big picture of the year 2021, we can look back on a very good year despite the tremendous challenges. Because of the pandemic, the year only started in May, but in the eight 'active' months, we presented five world premieres, two Belgian premieres, and reached over 36,500 audience members. Let’s be clear: COVID can’t stop the arts.
Can we slow down? Not a chance. Full speed ahead. The coming months will revolve around the creation of Grace Ellen Barkey’s Probabilities of Independent Events with dance students from Zurich, after which this spectacle will tour throughout Switzerland for a month as part of the STEPS Festival. Then there is the creation of Maarten Seghers’ new work; |
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Probabilities of Independent Events (Switzerland) | ||
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In 2019, within the context of the curatorship of December Dance by Needcompany, Grace Ellen Barkey created Probabilities of Independent Events. For ten days, she worked with students of KCA, and then together with the Needcompany orchestra, presented a celebration of exuberant meaninglessness full of humour and radicalism. |
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It was a lightning rod connecting three generations and is now getting a second version in Switzerland, where Probabilities of Independent Events is being produced exclusively for the Migros Culture Percentage Dance Festival Steps, this time with ten young graduates of the Höhere Fachschule für Zeitgenössischen und Urbanen Bühnentanz in Zurich.
After a creation period of 10 days and a premiere in Theater Casino Zug on 4 May, the production will tour through Switzerland, from Biel to Fribourg, for a month. | ||
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AMOPERA | ||
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AMOPERA is a meta-opera in which Klangforum Vienna and Needcompany distil 100 years of modern opera into a dystopian ballad of two protagonists facing off in a curious battle. In a manner reminiscent of the paper shreds that Dadaist Hans Arp let fall to the ground at random to create new compositions born from the objectivity of pure chance, in AMOPERA, various musical high points of the modern repertoire are pitted against each other. | |
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AMOPERA is brought to the stage by Sarah Maria Sun, Holger Falk, Grace Ellen Barkey, Maarten Seghers, Jan Lauwers and the Klangforum ensemble. The confrontation between all these artists gives rise to a symbiosis in which craftsmanship serves the search for a human portrait of the impossibility and tragedy of love between two people. Premiere in Festspielhaus Erl on 5 November!
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Duck On Water | ||
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The title refers to an old, carefully preserved piece of a mural on the wall depicting a duck on a pond. The attraction to this unassuming archaeological artefact, for Seghers, sparked fascination with the un-dramatic, which he, along with Aya Suzuki (percussion/vocals), Simon Lenski (cello/vocals), George van Dam (violin/harpsichord) and Michael Schmid (flute) – all virtuosos in their own right, who, each in their own way, fundamentally question music in order to escape to sound and music as physical mater – continues to explore. A collaboration with contemporary music ensemble Ictus (Brussels)! |
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MALAM / NIGHT - triptych | ||
During a residence in MA scène nationale – Pays de Montbéliard, Grace Tjang reworked her performative installation MALAM / NIGHT into a video piece, in collaboration with video artist Emma van der Put, composer Rombout Willems and cameraman Koen De Saeger. Three screens and three soundscapes together make up a triptych that's currently in the finishing stages. This triptych is to be an independent work within the artistic universe of MALAM / NIGHT.
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ON TOUR |
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Molly Bloom | ||
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After some 40 performances in Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Russia and Chile, the time has come for the Belgian premiere of Molly Bloom. For three nights (11/12/13 May), the stunning auditorium of the Vooruit Theatre in Ghent will be witness to the powerful monologue about sexuality, equality, and emancipation based on the last chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses, with the inimitable Viviane De Muynck in the titular role of Leopold Bloom’s unfaithful wife. Before that, the French version will play for three nights (5/6/7 April) in La Filature in Mulhouse. Not to be missed! Also this spring, the Chilean version with Gabriella Hernandez will return to Santiago. Tour dates will be kept updated on our website. |
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MALAM / NIGHT | ||
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In the summer months, Grace Tjang will be returning to her dialogue with the night in search for the image of her memory. In June, the performative installation MALAM / NIGHT will be on at the In Extremis Festival in Théâtre Garonne (Toulouse), and then in Erlangen in August. More dates to come! |
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Billy's Violence | ||
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Billy's Violence, the radical reworking of Shakespeare by author Victor Afung Lauwers and director Jan Lauwers, with music by Maarten Seghers, plays on 18 and 19 March at NTGent. These dates are the last in a long series that began in the summer of 2021 with premieres in Spain, France, Poland, and Belgium. |
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Tickets are still available, but don’t wait: this is your last chance to see this sensational show until autumn of 2022! If you can’t make it to Ghent, tide yourself over until the autumn 2022 run by immersing yourself in Maarten Seghers’ music of the show, now streaming on all online streaming services and available on physical media from our Bandcamp account, where you can also buy the original Dutch version, Billy’s Geweld, published by Bebuquin. In the meantime, Victor Afung Lauwers is already working on his next commission: Billy’s Joy, the second piece in the diptych Billy’s Problem. Something to look forward to in 2023... | ||
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All the Good | ||
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All the Good, the fictional self-portrait that Jan Lauwers wrote and directed in 2019, is still touring. Next date on the calendar: Osterfestival Tirol, Innsbruck, on 15 April. And there’s more news in store for this show... watch this space! |
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Crew changes | ||
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In January 2022, our artistic developer Kasia Tórz decided that it was time for her career to move on from Needcompany. We'd like to thank Kasia for the many insights and changes that she brought to Needcompany over the years and wish her every success in her future career. Note that henceforth, you may refer to her as 'Dr Kasia Tórz', being that she recently completed her Ph.D with flying colours. We'd also like to take this opportunity to welcome Dries D’Hondt as our new technical coordinator. Dries’ previous work has included work for Blindman and CC De Faktorij, as well as years of freelance work as sound technician for Needcompany on tour. That expertise and experience will no doubt be an invaluable resource for Needcompany in the coming years. |
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Premis de la Critica | ||
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Nao Albet, the Catalonian actor and cast member of Billy’s Violence, has been nominated for a Premis de la Critica, the Catalonian press prizes, in the category of best supporting actor. As to the category, there might be something debatable – if everyone has a lead role, doesn’t that make every role a supporting role? – but as far as we're concerned, there’s certainly no debate that he deserves to win. Fingers crossed! | |
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