"Secret passion, secret teachings that teach us nothing. Loyalty to an absence that shaped everything, giving it form and secret meaning. What mattered most to him was something he could not share with others. So he painted trees, clouds, peacocks, the Ostend beach, a poultry yard, still lifes on half-cleared tables – an immense, silent, devoted labour of grief, to put the world’s weeping to rest in the most everyday things." - Stefan Hertmans 

Jan Lauwers is a storyteller and image-maker who is acclaimed around the world for his human form of theatre. Through Hertmans' story he'll create a whirling performance around Viviane De Muynck and the Needcompany ensemble, on a composition by Rombout Willems, performed by Alain Franco, Simon Lenski et George Van Dam.