Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Radouan Mriziga / Rosas, A7LA5 Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione
Freesheet
In II Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Radouan Mriziga set out to explore Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. The starting point for this new choreographic work is the exquisite recording of Vivaldi’s composition by virtuosic violinist and long-time Rosas collaborator Amandine Beyer and her ensemble Gli Incogniti.
The Four Seasons is one of the most well-known, iconic and reproduced pieces of music; a veritable ‘hit’ of the classical repertoire. It is also a striking ode to nature. De Keersmaeker and Mriziga, who previously collaborated on 3ird5 @ w9rk(2020), share a keen interest in the observation of nature, geometry, and embodied abstraction. They also share a concern with our changing and increasingly troubling relationship to our natural environment. Contemplating the four seasons in nature by contemplating the nature of this musical composition not only inspires further explorations of patterns present in the natural world and celestial configurations as possible starting points for choreography, it also vividly brings to the surface the urgency of the impending climate crisis. Do we still have four seasons? In addition, Vivaldi wrote this music three hundred years ago in the Mediterranean, a region at the intersection of different continents. The Four Seasons thus also invites reflection on the circulations of knowledge, power, and histories this region represents.
In II Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione, multiple strands come together to create a unique choreographic language. The piece aims to return to the core, the structure of Vivaldi’s famous composition and the many associations and emotions it evokes, while offering a choreographic counterpoint to it. At the same time the dance underscores that there may be something contemplative to be found in The Four Seasons, in its familiarity, and in the familiarity of nature.
About Rosas
Rosas is the company of the choreographer and dancer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. It was founded in 1983 during the creation of the piece Rosas danst Rosas. Since her debut in 1982 with Fase, Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich, De Keersmaeker has been engaged in a rigorous exploration and articulation of movement, from its simplest forms to its most complex. The relationship between movement and music is essential to De Keersmaeker’s concept of dance. Rosas has expanded the art of dance as an act of writing movements in space and time, and has over the years explored choreography in partnership with other compositional forces, namely music, geometry, the visual arts, and language. De Keersmaeker’s engagement of these disciplines has involved collaborations with experts—musicians, composers, visual artists, actors, writers—who have at different times been integral participants and performers in Rosas productions.
Concurrently with the creation of new pieces, Rosas continues to perform and teach the existing repertoire, which now spans a period of 30 years. In this way the company’s own artistic past continues to be passed on to new generations of dancers and audiences. Ever since De Keersmaeker’s early works began to gain international attention, Rosas has built a strong and vital presence in the dance world, engaging theaters, repertoire companies, opera houses, festivals, workplaces, exhibition spaces, and educational platforms. With the partnership and support of the De Munt/La Monnaie opera house, where Rosas was in residency from 1992 to 2007, and Kaaitheater, Rosas has had a consistent home onstage in Brussels, and has worked with those organizations to foster such projects as P.A.R.T.S., Bal Moderne, and WorkSpaceBrussels. These projects, made possible and propelled with the support of Rosas, have since their inception developed into entirely independent organizations, making space for new in-house projects at Rosas such as Dancingkids and RondOmDans.
The Rosas facilities in Brussels are a center of myriad artistic activities and resources in the performing arts. At present the campus is shared with P.A.R.T.S. and the contemporary music ensemble Ictus, and studios are also made available to WorkSpaceBrussels, the summer residents of Summer Studios, and the numerous companies and artists who come to work here. The site is one of the key places in Brussels where established and emerging performing artists can meet and interact in mutually enriching encounters.
Rosas adheres to the principles of Good Governance, as described in the Governance Code for Culture, and supports ‘juistisjuist’ (‘what’s right is right’). The dance company supports clear and fair principles for collaboration in the arts, and applies the guidelines around fair practice and fair pay, and adheres to the policies around integrity. An internal working group drafted a charter concerning well-being at work for the organisation.
Artistic Team & Credits
Choreography Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Radouan Mriziga
Created with and Danced by Boštjan Antončič, Nassim Baddag, Lav Crnčević, José Paulo dos Santos
Music Antonio Vivaldi, Le quattro stagioni
Recording Amandine Beyer, Gli Incogniti, Alpha Classics/Outhere Music 2015
Musical Analysis Amandine Beyer
Poems
Asmaa Jama, ‘We, the salvage’
Antonio Vivaldi, ‘Le quattro stagioni’
Set and Light Design Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Radouan Mriziga
Costume Design Aouatif Boulaich
Rehearsal Director Eleni Ellada Damianou
Assistant to the Artistic Director Martine Lange
Artistic Coordination and Planning Anne Van Aerschot
Tour Manager Emma Hermans
Technical Director Thomas Verachtert
Technicians Jan-Simon De Lille, Bennert Vancottem
Wardrobe Chiara Mazzarolo
Managing Director Lies Martens
Distribution Frans Brood Productions
Transport Frank Verhagen
Production Rosas
Co-Production Berliner Festspiele, Charleroi danse – centre chorégraphique de Wallonie-Bruxelles, Concertgebouw Brugge (Bruges), De Munt/La Monnaie (Brussel, Bruxelles, Brussels), Festival d’Automne à Paris, Festival de Marseille, ImPulsTanz (Wenen, Vienne, Vienna), Sadler’s Wells (Londen, Londres, London), Théâtre de la Ville-Paris
This production is realized with the support of the Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government, in collaboration with Casa Kafka Pictures.
Rosas is supported by the Flemish Community and the Flemish Community Commission (VGC).
With the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels