A plastician by training, Jan Lauwers from Antwerp started in the theatre with l'Epigonenensemble. In 1986, he created Needcompany and today is the company's artistic director. Since then the Needcompany has put on about forty productions, most of them directed by Jan Lauwers, but sometimes by other members of the company. They have also staged the Needlapbs which began six years ago. In their first theatre projects of the 1980s, Jan Lauwers and his group worked on developing a relationship with a particular kind of theatre performance, on creating their own space in the Belgian theatre scene. Their plays incorporate plastic art, music and movement, fragmentary texts, several languages which all contribute to their orginality, with particular emphasis given to stage-play and the role of the actor, wavering between critical presence and distance. The poetical work of the Needcompany has been through different styles, as well as having alternated classical texts including several of William Shakespeare's (Macbeth - 1996 and King Lear - 2000) and original productions, such as Invictos (1991), The Snake Song Trilogy (1994-1996), La chambre d'Isabella (Isabella's Room, 2004). The Needcompany's approach is one of incessant review and a constant renewal of form. At the Avignon Festival, the Needcompany presented La chambre d'Isabella – Isabella's Room in 2004.
The tenth Needlapb organised by Jan Lauwers and his company-collective of actors, dancers and musicians, is not really a stage play, it is above all, a moment of conviviality, of celebration and surprises. It is a research laboratory that becomes a special space where the ephemeral time of a show is replaced by a period of creation using fragments of different materials including texts, songs, snatches of film, drama and dance. Everything is possible because Needlapb exists outside of the limits imposed by the production of a play. Some of the sketches may well end up in a future play, and maybe not. However, each Needlapb is different. It is unique because it is a cliché of a particular stage of research, a photo of a process, a moment for communicating with the audience. Its informal organisation is nonetheless entirely devoted to developing forms and to contemplation. The Needlapb is a special sort of evening, one that is open and that plays with the atmosphere of a place and the way its guests watch it.
Distribution
choreography Jan Lauwers
Cast : Anneke Bonnema, Hans Petter Dahl, Julien Faure, Benoît Gob, Tijen Lawton, Louise Peterhoff, Maarten Seghers, Viviane De Muynck, Jan Lauwers, Grace Ellen Barkey
Lighting : Krispijn Schuyesmans, Lieven De Meyere
Sound : Dré Schneider
Production
Production : Needcompany (Bruxelles)