De Munt rounded off its dance program for the 2018-19 season with a performance by Rosas at the Kaaitheater. On the program was a repertoire evening with Bartók/Beethoven/Schönberg: three early works by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, each inspired by a classical composition. For the occasion there was also live musical accompaniment. Musicians from Ictus performed for Bartók and Beethoven, and orchestra members from Brussels Philharmonic under the direction of Alain Franco for Schönberg.
Quatuor n° 4 from 1986 is the oldest choreography, but shows not a single wrinkle. On the contrary. This piece for four dancers takes you back to the early period of Rosas; to the wondering and captivated watching of four hopping girls in their black, swirling skirts and black ankle boots. And then there were those white shorts that also occasionally played a part in this playful, combative choreography to Bartók's complex rhythms and harmonies. You remember again the graceful little jumps, that wink now and then, that strictness in the movements that make the whole so complex and captivating. The members of the original casts, who guided newcomers during rehearsals, would certainly have made that clear.
In Die Grosse Fuge, a choreography created in 1992, the tone is completely different. Now only black-clad men are on the stage. They move to the tones of Beethoven's Große Fuge mostly individually in De Keersmaeker's search for a masculine vocabulary. There are confrontations. Gravity is apparently being challenged in a choreography that attempts to translate the ingenious counterpoint of the German composer. It is a not very accessible work, which makes great demands on both dancers and audience.
For Verklärte Nacht by Arnold Schönberg, the four accomplished musicians from Ictus, who had been performing on stage each time, made way for their string colleagues from Brussels Philharmonic. They settled into the narrow orchestra pit. This gave the two dancers the entire empty, bare stage to perform the new version of the choreography from 1995. Verklärte Nacht, based on a poem by Richard Dehmel, tells the story of two people in love. But the couple is confronted with the fact that the woman is expecting a child from another man whom she never loved. Ultimately they decide to accept the child as their own. In her version, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker lets the woman speak primarily and express her feelings of guilt. The man remains absent for a long time. But then he is also allowed to portray his inner conflict. Ultimately reconciliation comes in a duet. There was fine dancing, but sadly little emotion came across in the piece as a whole.
- WHAT: Bartók/Beethoven/Schönberg
- WHO: Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (choreography), Rosas (dance), Ictus and Brussels Philharmonic conducted by Alain Franco (music)
- WHERE: Kaaitheater, Brussels
- WHEN: Wednesday 19 June 2019
- PHOTOS: © Anne Van Aerschot
