Four dancers fall toward the floor, arms outstretched in a leap of surrender.

Bartók/Beethoven/Schönberg

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker/Rosas, Ictus & Brussels Philharmonic conducted by Alain Franco

On this repertory evening, Rosas brings together three early works by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. In 1986, De Keersmaeker first ventured into the terrain of contemporary classical music with Bartók’s string quartet Quartet No. 4. In a choreography punctuated by both playful and combative accents, De Keersmaeker took on the task of distilling a dance score out of Bartók’s complex rhythms and layered harmonies. In the Grosse Fuge (1992), De Keersmaeker sets out to find a male vocabulary, with Rosas’ dancers challenging gravity in a piece that sought to provide a physical translation of Beethoven’s ingenious use of counterpoint. The final piece of the evening, Verklärte Nacht (1995), presents a shamelessly romantic love story, in which the contrasting feelings of a man and a woman are dissected and interpreted in an expressive duet based on Schönberg’s eponymous musical score. Each of the three pieces constitutes a choreographic response to a specific historical score, unveiling De Keersmaeker’s penchant for both abstract conceptualisation and narrative composition.

Credits

Choreography
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
Danced by
Boštjan Antončič, Laura Bachman, Lav Crnčević, José Paulo dos Santos, Anika Edström Kawaji, Bilal El Had, Frank Gizycki, Robin Haghi, Yuika Hashimoto, Cynthia Loemij, Laura Maria Poletti, Soa Ratsifandrihana, Luka Švajda, Thomas Vantuycom
Musicians
Igor Semenoff, Pieter Jansen, Aurélie Entringer, Jeroen Robbrecht, Geert De Bièvre, François Deppe
Lighting design
Luc Schaltin, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
Costumes
Rosas
Production
Rosas
Co-production
De Munt/La Monnaie
With the support of
The Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government, in collaboration with Casa Kafka Pictures Tax Shelter empowered by Belfius

Images

  • A male performer in a suit carries a female performer in a dress on his knee, her body fully outstretched like a plank.
    © Anne Van Aerschot
  • Four dancers swivel on one leg, balancing on the tips of their shoes.
    © Anne Van Aerschot
  • A male and female performer run side by side in an arc, the man poised to catch the woman.
    © Anne Van Aerschot