Tara Zahra sees Anna Teresa De Keersmaeker's "In Real Time". She tells us that, 'I can only speak for myself, but I left the [Vienna] Burgtheater at 12:15 AM exhausted (they weren't kidding when they said "full-length"). But it was the kind of exhaustion you get from staying at a good party for too long talking to interesting people, or from spending your first day in a new and exciting place.'<P> <A HREF="http://www.danceinsider.com/f715_2.html" TARGET=_blank>http://www.danceinsider.com/f715_2.html</A> <p>[This message has been edited by Admin (edited October 17, 2001).]

<P>'Fases' by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's company, Rosas<P><BR>Opinions vary about Rosas or perhaps about particular works. People whose views I respect, including grace, have been distinctly underwhelmed by some of her work. But one friend who has seen several pieces reports that there is a variety of success. As they said about Miller, the 40s and 50s Aussie cricketer, only mediocrity is only at its best. <P>As i have said elsewhere 'Fases' and 'Drumming' are two of my favourite modern dance works.<P>Here is their comprehensive website divided between the Company and the School. I was looking through the school info. and was interested particularly in the choreography units where there is some description of the syllabus. <P>One interesting point is the use that is made in the school of William Forsythe's 'Improvisation Technologies'. I know that it is being used at least to some extent in the Laban Centre. Being an eclectic, who feels that crossing boundaries and hybrid works can often be the most interesting, I am pleased that these two important modern dance schools are tapping into Forsythe's methodology. I wonder whether any ballet schools are using his movement creation methodology as part of the curriculum?<P> <A HREF="http://www.rosas.be/" TARGET=_blank>http://www.rosas.be/</A> <P>Their touring programme for the next 6 months is mainly European apart from a tour to Japan.<P>Has anyone got any comments about Rosas or the website when you have a chance to look?<p>[This message has been edited by Stuart Sweeney (edited December 19, 2000).]

I believe Anne T-de K used a Steve Reich compositon-Drumming. Same piece that Laura Dean used many years ago..which was a signature piece of Dean's. Has anybody out there seen both pieces?<BR>It is always interesting when a musical piece is used by several different choreographers. Bach's Double Violin Concerto comes to mind--I have seen it used by myriad choreographers!! Most memorably by Paul Taylor in "Esplanade". Monica Levy used the same piece (she had a company in New York/Boston, don't know where she is now), and it's been used by Balanchine, I believe, in Agon (I'm not 100% sure of that).<P>Getting back to Anne T de K, I have never seen her work before. It sounds like "minimal" tanztheatre. Is it like Pina Bausch?

I saw Anna Teresa De Keersmaeker's Drumming last year. I enjoyed the first 10 minutes immensely. Thereafter I spent the evening contemplating how to get a swatch of the backdrop so I could find out what it was. It was simply beautiful with how it reacted to light.<P>

I really enjoyed 'Drumming' throughout and it was well recieved in London. There is a piece by Jiri Kylian to an extract of 'Drumming'.

I have the "Drumming" cd - well, I have my friend's copy (and have for a whiiile) - and can definitely see why various people have used it for dance. It's also neat to hear about which ones have used what music because those pieces become part of the "history" a piece of music will have, which can affect its use.<P>Another example of that kind of thing is when you use movie soundtracks - sometimes it can build in an expectation of being related to the movie. Especially if it's recent. <P>I looked at Anna Teresa De Keersmaeker's tour schedule - Anchorage simple wasn't on it. I just don't understand... But do have my fingers crossed. Looks interesting - even if just for the backdrop, Babs!

trina I didn't pick up your question about Pina Bausch. I've only see the two works I mentioned, but my impression is that Rosas is much more 'dancey' than Bausch, particularly compared with the examples of the latter's work I have seen from the past 15 years. <P>Minimalism is an important strand however in Keersmaeker's work.

<P>PENELOPE DEBELLE, The Age, 04.14.2000:<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Rare performance by Belgian superstar<P>Fase, written by de Keersmaeker after she returned from a year of study in New York in 1982, is an intricate, disciplined and highly stylised piece that signalled the emergence of de Keersmaeker as a new force in European dance.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>[DEAD LINK REMOVED]<p>[This message has been edited by Admin (edited June 01, 2002).]

<BR><font size=1><I>I Said I</I></font><P>[url=http://www.rosas.be" TARGET=_blank><B>Rosas Website</B></A><P><I>I Said I</I><BR><a href="http://www.legrandlabo.com/video_56k/isaidi.mov" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: underline">extrait vidéo 56k</a><BR><a href="http://www.legrandlabo.com/video_dsl/isaidiDSL.mov" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: underline">extrait vidéo DSL</a><P><BR>Rosas Newsletter, July 2001:<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Meanwhile Anne Teresa and Jolente De Keersmaeker could not let go of Handke's Selbstbezichtigung. Two years later this text inspired I SAID I (1999), an extremely incisive piece, whose impact was further increased by the war raging in the Balkans at the time. In Selbstbezichtigung Handke describes impassively and pragmatically, through endless enumerations, the obligatory course each of us runs from birth to adulthood, moving from nature to culture - an inevitable process of adaptation and integration into society. With this disturbing indictment against domineering laws and duties, the dancers of Rosas, together with the Ictus Ensemble, DJ Grazzhoppa and the saxophone player, Fabrizio Cassol (Aka Moon), made a performance about the individual's relationship to the community; about loneliness; about an individual's solitude; and especially about solitude inside a group. Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker: "A group can only function when each of its members adopts a position, makes his own way, completes his own trajectory. You can only get constructive complexity within a social structure when each individual is anchored firmly enough." Her own group works abundantly illustrate this point of view.<P>Do dancers deal differently with text than actors? Do actors handle movement in another way than dancers? The preparations for a common performance by Rosas, theatre company STAN and jazz ensemble Aka Moon focused on these questions. As a first step in the work process a STAN-Rosas production was created with a cast of two. In QUARTETT (1999), an adaptation of Heiner Müller's play of the same name, Frank Vercruyssen (STAN) and Cynthia Loemij (Rosas) presented a restrained and regal enactment of Müller's passionate dialogue between a man and a woman who, although desiring each other, torment and humiliate each other with cutting wit. Their power struggle was extrapolated to larger-scale (political) power relations in society. The complexity of intimate relationships between the sexes, a recurring theme in Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's work, came to the fore in this piece, as it did earlier in Hertog Blauwbaards Burcht (Duke Blue-Beard's Castle), Bartók's opera which the choreographer directed the previous year. "The notion of harmony is more quickly achieved in dance and music. When working with texts the flow of thoughts becomes far more detailed, giving conflicts a greater chance to develop," explains De Keersmaeker. QUARTETT is a remarkably stylised production. As in the other recent performances - with or without text - time and space are structured. The basic pattern is a spiral. Frank Vercruyssen circles around Cynthia Loemij like a spider around its prey. The latter's game of seduction is shaped by the subtle ways in which movement and text guide each other, alternatively dominating and grounding one another.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><a href="http://www.rosas.be/newslettercontentjuly2001.html]<B>more...</B>[/url]<BR>

<P>Adelaide Festival Preview<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Our advice is to rest beforehand and eat well in advance. Come with energy and patience: forget it is one of the greatest dance companies in the world, be open to anything. This is two and a half hours without a break - when you eventually hit the Brahms piano trio No 1, you find yourself thinking about just where this work has taken you - maybe to the very heart of a burgeoning century.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

TANZtheater INTERNATIONAL `99 Preview<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>"I said I is the name of the three hour Marathon in which ten dancers, swarming over the stage like bees, alternately break into massed scenes and solos against live classical, jazz and hip-hop. Even in the moving tutti scenes, they incessantly recite Peter Handke's text, sharing it out amongst different voices and transposing it into different languages like an absolutely necessary litany. ... I said I by the Belgian group Rosas was one of the highlights of the TANZtheater INTERNATIONAL festival, which once again brought together the best productions of the season." <BR>NDR 3, 'Texte und Zeichen - Telegramm', 13.09.99 <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

10.05.01 <BR>Rosas (Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker) [BELGIUM] <BR>I Said I <BR>Théâtre Maisonneuve, Place des Arts <BR>Festival International de Nouvelle Danse<P>Choreography : Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker <P>Performed by : Iris Bouche, Marta Coronado, Alix Eynaudi, Fumiyo Ikeda, Martin Kilvady, Oliver Koch, Roberto Olivan de la Iglesia, Ursula Robb, Taka Shamoto, Rosalba Torres <P>Music : DJ Grazzhoppa, Fabrizio Cassol & Aka Moon, l'Ensemble Ictus (François Deppe, Jean-Luc Plouvier, Jean-Luc Fafchamps, George van Dam, Alexandre Fostier) <P><BR>I Said I is a long show. Two and a half hours long. Not very much of that time is spent dancing, which is too bad, because that's the part of the show that I enjoyed the most. <P>Much of the action on stage is what I call "tasking," i.e., the dancers perform the kind of activities you would do in everyday life. It never seems to serve any other purpose than to give the dancers something to do. Because if they weren't tasking, what would they do to fill up the time? Dance??? I know, I know, I've really got to get with the program of what's hip in contemporary dance. <P>I watch Rosas' dancers break down the pallets on the stage and stand the pieces up against the back wall of the stripped down theatre. They stack and unstack colourful Tupperware and plastic buckets across the span of the downstage apron. They move chairs into a line across the middle of the stage from left to right, then they move the chairs into pairs, forming a line from the downstage center to upstage, then they move them back to the sides of the stage where they were originally. They stack bales of newspaper into a big heap in the middle of the space. Then they unpile them. You get the picture. Someone dances a short solo in the middle of the action for a few shining moments, running and sliding, rolling like quicksilver. <P>The dancers recite Peter Handke's 1966 text, Selbstbezichtigung (auto-accusation) like a mantra. It's a relentless series of confessions. "I have lived." "I have moved." "I have failed to turn off faucets" "I called peace lazy." "I pushed on doors that said pull." "I pulled on doors that said push." As one performer finishes, another one starts. It's an incessant socio-political manifesto as performed by the Me Generation. There's some irony in that but mostly it just wears me out. <P>Finally some prolonged dancing takes place. It's very good. The dancers are very talented. The movement is breathy and fresh with enough sharp notes to keep it from becoming too delicate. It's exactly why people paid close to fifty dollars to see the show. It's some of the best dancing I've seen at the festival. The musicians and the DJ are also impressive. <P>Ah, but then it's back to the text and tasking again. And of course the dancers have to be naked at one point because introspection and self-revelation is de rigueur these days. There are some more dance sections that blow me away but they're never long enough and I feel like I've stepped into some kind of cult meeting, where if I want to see any dancing I have to suffer the rhetoric. Some refuse the role of martyr, I can hear the doors swishing shut as they leave the theatre. I never make any connections between the dancing, the text and the tasking. I do understand why I have to sit and listen to the small chamber group play Brahms piano trio No. 1 at the end, after the final round of Handke's text has been dispensed. It's not a contemporary dance piece unless you listen to music without dance at some point in the program. Or at least that's what I've learned in the past three weeks of the festival. I'm pretty sure I was supposed to leave the theatre feeling enlightened but I must confess that what I felt was more akin to exhaustion. I watched my fellow indoctrinates cheer and give a standing ovation. I hope no one was serving kool-aid after the show. <BR>

We recently saw 'i SAID i' in London and my experience was the same as yours Marie - hard work, but great dance when it happened.<P>I loved the past two works I've seen by her - 'Drumming' and 'Fases'. Both are pure dance works with much to savour from these fine dancers. She is well worth persevering with in my view. <P>Here are the London reviews, which are very uncomplimentary. In London the critics were given a bottle of water to keep them going through the 150 minutes. A bottle of brandy might have been better:<BR> <A HREF="http://www.criticaldance.com/ubb/Forum16/HTML/000089.html" TARGET=_blank>http://www.criticaldance.com/ubb/Forum16/HTML/000089.html</A> <P><p>[This message has been edited by Stuart Sweeney (edited October 07, 2001).]

Thanks for posting that link Stuart. I guess the London critics didn't get the "special" water, lol.<P>I agree, ATdK is worth pursuing, I think she's one of the best contemporary choreographers out there. But this particular, show, oy, I don't know. Give me a Vandekeybus piece any day over that.

William Littler - Toronto Star, 10.06.01:<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><B>Rosas by any other name would dance as sweet</B><BR>Belgian dance company thrives on collaborative interpretation <P>If the name sounds familiar, it is probably because Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's company has become a regular visitor to Harbourfront Centre's dance season over the past decade. It returns Thursday to the Premiere Dance Theatre with Rain, a choreographic setting of Steve Reich's Music For 18 Musicians.<P>But Rosas is more than a touring dance company. In Belgium particularly, it is a creative and educative force, bringing together artists from various disciplines and nationalities to broaden esthetic horizons on both sides of the footlights.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><B>more...</B><BR>