Rosas presents EXIT ABOVE and En Atendant at Festival d'Avignon
Published on 26.06.2023, 16:02
This year, Rosas is invited to Festival d’Avignon with not one but two productions! From the 6th until the 13th of July, we will present EXIT ABOVE (2023), followed by En Atendant (2010), from the 14th until the 25th of July.
13 years ago, En Atendant premiered at the Cloître des Célestins in Avignon. We are thrilled about this extraordinary opportunity to present the revival of the performance at the same exact location!
The newest Rosas creation, EXIT ABOVE, will be performed in La FabricA.
En Atendant
With En Atendant in 2010, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker took the polyphonic music of Ars Subtilior as the starting point for the development of a new dance vocabulary. This performance, originally created for the Cloître des Célestins during the Avignon Festival, laid the foundations for her principles “my walking is my dancing” and “my talking is my dancing,” and was a starting point for a renewed questioning of physical architecture in relation to music.
Ars Subtilior is a complex and intellectual musical form dating back to the fourteenth century that starts from a dissonant, unexpected stratification. It matured in a world scarred by the plague, at a time when the social, political, and religious pillars of medieval society were splintering. Today, this upheaval seems more topical than ever. In today’s complexity of choices, in the intangibility of what happens to us, the question of our physicality, our mortality, feels once again central.
- From the 14th until the 25th of July, Cloître des Célestins - Festival d'Avignon, France
EXIT ABOVE - after the tempest / d'après la tempête / naar de storm
For EXIT ABOVE, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker retraces her steps: to the roots of dance, the roots of Western pop music. Since her earliest work, ‘my walking is my dancing’ is one of her guiding principles: walking as a primary form of movement, so familiar that we hardly stop to think about it. Also in terms of the music, De Keersmaeker embarks on a journey towards a starting point that is in fact an intersection: the roots of pop music, the blues, and its mysterious ‘blue notes,’ in-between zones, between major and minor, sorrow and joy. 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, will compose 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.
In EXIT ABOVE, walking as primal motion and the blues as musical source meet. Choreographically, De Keersmaeker always moves from organically opening up simple movement material toward spatial and physical complexity, using precise geometrical patterns. EXIT ABOVE explores the tension between marching together and stepping out, between romantic solitary ‘wandern’ (wandering) and the political potential of a group of unarmed people walking together, the individual and the collective, the line and the circle. The act of walking runs counter to the hegemony of functionality and efficiency. It is an effort that produces nothing aside from the passing of time and the crossing of space. However, walking also generates thoughts and reminiscences that reveal the extent to which our inner world is also a landscape – a landscape that can often only be traversed on foot.
- From the 6th until the 13th of July, La FabricA - Festival d'Avignon, France
For more information, visit the website of Festival d'Avignon.
EXIT ABOVE
after the tempest / d'après la tempête / naar de storm
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Meskerem Mees, Jean-Marie Aerts, Carlos Garbin / Rosas
Choreography
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
Created with and Danced by
Abigail Aleksander, Jean Pierre Buré, Lav Crnčević, José Paulo dos Santos, Rafa Galdino, Carlos Garbin, Nina Godderis, Solal Mariotte, Meskerem Mees, Mariana Miranda, Ariadna Navarrete Valverde, Cintia Sebők, Jacob Storer
Music
Meskerem Mees, Jean-Marie Aerts, Carlos Garbin
Music performed by
Meskerem Mees, Carlos Garbin
Scenography
Michel François
Light design
Max Adams
Costume design
Aouatif Boulaich
Text and Lyrics
Meskerem Mees, Wannes Gyselinck
Dramaturgy
Wannes Gyselinck
Rehearsal Directors
Cynthia Loemij, Clinton Stringer
Artistic Coordination and Planning
Anne Van Aerschot
Assistant to the Artistic Director
Martine Lange
Tour Manager
Bert De Bock
Technical Director
Freek Boey
Assistant Technical Director
Jonathan Maes
Technicians
Jonathan Maes, Quentin Maes, Thibault Rottiers
Sound
Alex Fostier
Costume Coördinator ad interim
Emma Zune
Assisted by Els Van Buggenhout
Wardrobe
Els Van Buggenhout
Sewing
Chiara Mazzarolo, Martha Verleyen
Production
Rosas
Coproduction
Concertgebouw Brugge (Bruges), De Munt / La Monnaie (Brussel / Bruxelles / Brussels), Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, Le théâtre Garonne (Toulouse), GIE FONDOC OCCITANIE (Le Parvis Tarbes, Scène nationale ALBI Tarn, Le Cratère Alès, Scène nationale Grand Narbonne, Théâtre Garonne)
Acknowledgements
Baptiste Alexandre, Naomie Bentein, Bert De Swert, Michel Dierickx, Steven Fillet, Nicolas Fiszman, Ann-Sofie Merlier, Miet Ongena, Tom Pauwels, Jean-Luc Plouvier, Olivier Thys, Alexandra Verschueren
World Premiere
May 31, 2023, Théâtre National Wallonie - Bruxelles, Brussels
presented by Théâtre National Wallonie- Bruxelles, De Munt/ La Monnaie, Kaaitheater and Kunstenfestivaldesarts
With the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels
This production is realized with the support of the Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government, in collaboration with Casa Kafka Pictures – Belfius.
Rosas is supported by the Flemish Community, the Flemish Community Commission (VGC), and by the BNP Paribas Foundation.
En Atendant
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker / Rosas & Cour et Cœur
Choreography
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
Danced by
Boštjan Antončič, Sophia Dinkel, Carlos Garbin, Marie Goudot, Cynthia Loemij, Mark Lorimer, Sandy Williams, Sue-Yeon Youn
Created in 2010 with
Boštjan Antončič, Carlos Garbin, Cynthia Loemij, Mark Lorimer, Mikael Marklund, Chrysa Parkinson, Sandy Williams, Sue-Yeon Youn
Music
...L(ÉLEK)ZEM..’ - Istvan Matuz
En Atendant, souffrir m’estuet (ballade) - Filippo da Caserta
Estampie En Atendant 2 (2010) - Bart Coen
Sus un’ Fontayne (virelai) - Johannes Ciconia
Je prens d’amour noriture (virelai)- anonymous
Esperance, ki en mon coeur - anonymous
Ensemble
Cour et Cœur
Music Direction
Bart Coen
Musicians
Michael Schmid : flaute
Bart Coen : recorders
Thomas Baeté : fiddle
Annelies Van Gramberen / Lieselot De Wilde: voice
Scenography
Michel François
Costumes
Anne-Catherine Kunz
Rehearsal Director
Fumiyo Ikeda
Assistants Revival
Femke Gyselinck, Fumiyo Ikeda, Cynthia Loemij, Chrysa Parkinson, Michaël Pomero
Musicological advisor
Felicia Bockstael
Technical director
Freek Boey
Assistant Technical Director
Jonathan Maes
Artistic coordination and planning
Anne Van Aerschot
Tour manager
Jolijn Talpe
Costume Coordinator ad interim
Emma Zune
Assisted by Els Van Buggenhout
Wardrobe
Emma Zune
Technicians
Jan Balfoort
Production
Rosas
Coproduction 2010
De Munt / La Monnaie (Brussels), Festival Grec (Barcelona), Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), Festival d’Avignon, Concertgebouw Brugge (Bruges)
World Premiere
Festival d’Avignon, Cloître des Célestins, 9 July 2010
Running time
1:35
Rosas is supported by the Flemish Community, the Flemish Community Commission (VGC), and by the BNP Paribas Foundation.
