Rosas danst Rosas

A classic

In 1982 Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s Fase was a revelation because of the impact of its repetitive, postmodern movement idiom. A year later the choreographer, who was still very young, surprised audiences once more with her extremely powerful composition, Rosas danst Rosas. The production was also the start of the Rosas group; the four female dancers – Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Michèle Anne De Mey, Fumiyo Ikeda and Nadine Ganase – were the first members of the new dance company.

Rosas danst Rosas became a huge international success: it was performed countless times all over the world. It became a classic and has remained a permanent item in the Rosas repertoire. In the 25 years since its creation it has been learned over and over by new groups of dancers. In 1997 Thierry De Mey made a film of the work in which the various casts and generations came together. Today, 25 years later, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker is once again taking her place on stage and to dance with three members of the second generation, Cynthia Loemij, Sarah Ludi and Samantha Van Wissen.

It opens with four women standing upstage with their backs to the audience: their first movement is to fall backwards and at the same time roll over. Almost like capsizing. In the first part the only music we hear is that of the human body, panting and sliding across the floor. The music, which starts in part two, was composed by Thierry De Mey and Peter Vermeersch in parallel with the creation of the choreography.

Rosas danst Rosas is a prefiguration of the tensions that characterise Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s work, these being the contrast between rational structure and meaningful emotion, the dialectic between aggression and tenderness, the interaction between unison and counterpoint, and between uniformity and individuality.