There are several aspects to Needcompany’s educational activities:

Publications

One of the highlights of our educational work and work for the young is the book of essays entitled No beauty for me there where human life is rare. On Jan Lauwers’ theatre work with Needcompany. This academic work (published by Academia Press, Ghent University) makes it possible to convey something of the transient medium that is theatre. The distribution of this material to colleges in Belgium and abroad gives rise to a shared basis of ideas.

The scripts by Jan Lauwers have already been published by Actes Sud Papiers (F), Fischer Verlage (D) and Bebuquin (B). A Dutch edition of the collected plays of Jan Lauwers will be published by Uitgeverij Van Halewyck in November 2010. In 2006, Jan Lauwers received the Flemish Community Culture Prize in the dramatic literature category.

Needcompany has commissioned work from writers on several occasions. In addition to Jan Lauwers they include Tom Jansen, Chuck Mee, Josse De Pauw and Anneke Bonnema.

On the occasion of Needcompany’s 25th anniversary, the plan is to publish an art book entitled The Art of Needcompany: a survey of 25 years of ‘hybrid’ art.

 
Colloquia & Public Conversations

Jan Lauwers is often invited to colloquia all over the world. Needcompany also organises public conversations with Jan Lauwers, Grace Ellen Barkey and Viviane De Muynck. These conversations are linked to the tour performances.

Next colloquium (in French):

Colloque ARGUMENT 16 décembre 2009
Organisé par le Pavillon Bosio, une école de scénographie, dans le cadre du Monaco Dance Forum.

10h – 10h45
Conférence de Jan Lauwers, en conversation avec Gilbert Della Noce.

10h45 – 11h30
Conférence de Patricia Falguières sur l’histoire des relations entre les arts plastiques et la scène.

11h30 – 11h45
Pause

11h45 – 12h30
Conversation entre les intervenants et questions du public.

Previous colloquia:

Together with its European partners and the support of the European Union Culture 2000 programme, Needcompany organised a touring colloquium in five countries in the 2006-7 season: Belgium, Germany, France, Slovenia and Lithuania.

Jan Lauwers’ work for the stage has always raised plenty of questions about the relationship between truth and lies, reality and its perception, looking and being looked at, beauty and commitment, language and image. Lauwers’ theatre is not a closed world. His plays display critical thinking that unceasingly raises questions about the position of art in society and about society itself. Such universal and at the same time personal themes as love, sorrow, memory and death are always placed in the broader story of the world in which we live.

Four authors from different countries were asked to discuss Needcompany’s work, with reference to The Lobster Shop by Jan Lauwers & Needcompany.

The pieces are published in No beauty for me there where human life is rare. On Jan Lauwers’ theatre work with Needcompany, a book in English that brings together new and existing essays on Lauwers’ work. It is an initiative by Ghent University in Belgium and the editors are Prof. Christel Stalpaert, Frederik Le Roy MA and Sigrid Bousset.

 

Needcompany | Hooikaai 35 | B-1000 Brussels
tel: +32 2/218 40 75 | fax: +32 2/218 23 17 | info@needcompany.org