Walking the line between dance and music.

Walking is often one of our first milestones in movement. As a choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker is known for taking the simplest of movements and adding her signature layers of complexity. EXIT ABOVE explores the tension between marching together and stepping out alone, as well as walking as a primary form of movement – so familiar that we hardly stop to think about it.

As a soundtrack to this exploration, De Keersmaeker returns to the roots of Western pop and blues music. The starting point for the performance is the song Walking Blues by legendary blues artist Robert Johnson. The journey then 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 performs other variations of ‘walking songs’, composed together with Jean-Marie Aerts, sound architect of TC Matic, and with dancer and guitarist Carlos Garbin.

Rosas is the company of the choreographer and dancer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. It was founded in 1983 in Belgium and is now a Sadler’s Wells International Associate Company. De Keersmaeker’s choreographic practice draws its formal principles from geometry, numerical patterns, the natural world, and social structures. Her choreography is grounded in a rigorous exploration of the relationship between dance and music.

Header image © Anne Van Aerschot