Exit Above

With this creation, Anne Teresa De Keersmaekers shifts her exploration of the relationship between music and dance back to pop music. With its simple form, strong melodies and catchy lyrics, pop is for many people the most everyday and immediate music experience. Pop sets us in motion and creates connection. Through the enjoyment of the danceable and the singable, but also through storytelling: the mundane, but at the same time almost universal, human experiences expressed in it. This is where the potential of theatre arises and choreographic questions such as: how do you relate to song lyrics? How do you abstract something that is so pronounced? This creation not only encourages dance, but also emphasises the need for stories and music that we can relate to and recognise. 

The starting point for the performance is the song 'Walking Blues' by legendary blues artist Robert Johnson; even though the journey leads back to 'Der Wanderer' by Schubert, the best known singer-songwriter of the 19th Century. Meskerem Mees, an upcoming Flemish singer songwriter with Ethiopian roots, composes a series of variations, permutations, and other adaptations of 'walking songs,’ together with Jean-Marie Aerts, sound architect of TC Matic, the legendary Belgian 80s rock formation around singer Arno, and with dancer and guitarist Carlos Garbin. 
 
• Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and her company Rosas are well established in the international contemporary dance scene. She has been closely associated with Kaaitheater since the beginning of her dance career. Her work with pop music dates back to Golden Hours (As You Like It), the similar song by Brian Eno. In the '23-'24 season, we also presented Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione with Radouan Mriziga.