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JAN LAUWERS (Antwerp, 1957) is an artist who works in just about every medium. Over the last twenty years he has become best known for his pioneering work for the stage with Needcompany, which was founded in Brussels in 1986. Over the years he has also built up a substantial body of art work which was shown in an exhibition at BOZAR (Brussels) in 2007. He studied painting at the Academy of Art in Ghent. At the end of 1979 he gathered round him a number of people to form the Epigonenensemble. In 1981 this group was transformed into the Epigonentheater zlv collective which took the theatre-world by surprise with its six stage productions. In this way Jan Lauwers took his place in the movement for radical change in Flanders in the early'Bo, and also made his international breakthrough. Jan Lauwers disbanded this collective in 1985 and founded Needcompany. NEEDCOMPANY Jan Lauwers needs company. He founded Needcompany together with Grace Ellen Barkey. They together are responsible for Needcompany larger-scale productions. The group of performers Jan Lauwers and Grace Ellen Barkey have put together over the years is quite unique in its versatility. Their associated performing artists are MaisonDahlßonnema (Hans Petter Dahl & Anna Sophia Bonnema), Lemm & Barkey (Lot Lemm & Grace Ellen Barkey), OHNO COOPERATION (Maarten Seghers & Jan Lauwers) and the NC ensemble, which includes the inimitable Viviane De Muynck. They create work of their own under Needcompany's wing. Since Needcompany was founded in 1986, both its work and its performers have been markedly international, Lauwers'training as an artist is decisive in his handling of the theatre medium and leads to a highly individual and in many ways pioneering theatrical idiom that examines the theatre and its meaning. One of its most important characteristics is a transparent, 'thinking'acting and the paradox between'acting'and'performing'.

In 2006 he created two pieces for the Avignon Festival, one of which is The Lobster Shop, whose script he wrote himself, and All is Vanity, a monologue by Viviane De Muynck, which the actress herself adapted from Claire Goll's book of the same name. The Salzburger Festpiele has invited Jan Lauwers to make a new production, The Deer House, for summer 2008. Together with Isabella's Room (2004) and The Lobster Shop (2006) this new production makes up a trilogy on human nature: Sad Face/Happy Face. The trilogy as a whole was performed forthe first time at the Salzburger Festspiele 2008.