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It is too late to save this man. He pushes a board against his head, keeps a wooden slat between his legs, holds a microphone and lost his password – a password for a better healthier world in which he does not have to fight and sing against such horrible things as wooden speakers.

With What do you mean what do you mean and other pleasantries, the Belgian performer and musician Maarten Seghers opened the ImPulsTanz Festival at Vienna’s Schauspielhaus and, in doing so, consciously irritated and misled the audience.

Coveted Prize

Seghers’ artistic career is closely connected to the Needcompany of Jan Lauwers. He is one of eleven young artists who are competing, as part of the Festival [8:tension] series, to take home the Prix Jardin d’Europe for upcoming talent. But does Seghers stand a chance of winning with his Horrible Facts (which is the baseline of his performance)?

Yes, if you have a weak spot for peculiar things and don’t take the term ‘dance’ too seriously. For this performance is a lot of things: terrible stand-up act, a lively pop concert in an endless loop, a performance which plays with sculptures, an absurd theatre play or a lecture using the stream of consciousness technique.

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.