When I think about the works by the brilliant Belgium-based choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker that I’ve seen over the years, I realize how the different New York spaces in which they were performed affected not just my eyesight, but my feelings. That idea slid into my brain last week, when I was watching—experiencing—her and four members of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker/Rosas perform her 2017 … [Read more...]
Transfigured Night
I am always amazed by the dances that Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker creates for her Belgium-based company, Rosas. To begin with, I’m never sure what I’ll see or where I’ll have to go in order to see one of them. Preparing to take in her Verklärte Nacht last week, I might well have wondered whether she would perform a solo, like her 1980 Violin Phase (incorporated into the four-part Fase two years … [Read more...]
De Keersmaeker and Bach Shake Hands
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's The Six Brandenburg Concertos at Park Avenue Armory, October 1 through 7. In 1721, Johann Sebastian Bach, then thirty-six years of age, sent the Margrave of Brandenburg some concertos that he had composed with the following message: “Your Highness deigned to honor me with the command to send Your Highness some pieces of my Composition: I have in accordance with … [Read more...]
From Belgium, A Love Supreme
A Love Supreme by Salva Sanchis, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker/ Rosas comes to the U.S. Overtures are rare at New York Live Arts. You get your ticket, visit the restroom, maybe buy a drink. The creators of A Love Supreme, Salva Sanchis and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, warm us up in a more intimate way for what is to follow. A half hour before the performance is due to start, saxophonist Tony … [Read more...]
A Museum Exhibit That Keeps Moving
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's Work/Travail/Arbeid at the Museum of Modern Art, March 29-April 2. Decades ago, I could visit the Museum of Modern Art free whenever I wanted (it was a privilege granted to those of us who lived a bit west of MOMA at the Rehearsal Club, a residence for “young women in the theater”). In warm weather, I could drop in and prowl the Sculpture Garden—eyeing, if I … [Read more...]
Past, Present, and Future Meet in a Whirlpool
Imagine that you’re watching a group of workers assembling a large, complex object. So skillful are they that you can see what they are achieving, although you can’t always tell how they are bringing the object to life. You watch them fascinated—aware that rules, protocols, practices, and relationships govern their every move but not feeling deprived by your lack of knowledge. This what I … [Read more...]
Dancing with Bach
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Boris Charmatz perform her Partita 2 in Lincoln Center's White Light Festival. Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s Brussels-based company, Rosas, last performed in New York in 2013, when the Brooklyn Academy of Music presented her En Attendant and Cesena. Several years before, the two stunning pieces, featuring singers and instrumentalists as well as dancers, had … [Read more...]
Light into Darkness, Darkness to Light
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's Rosas and graindelavoix perform in En Atendant and Cesena. I wish that I had been in Avignon in July of 2010. Then I could have seen Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s En Atendant performed in the ancient Cloister of the Celestines, and, a week later, her companion piece, Cesena, in the Court of Honor, an amphitheater attached to the Papal Palace. Both were performed … [Read more...]