Rosas

On April 15, 2024, Rosas presented a new project at KMSKA in Antwerp, in the context of the Belgian presidency of the Council of the European Union. The performance built on previous Rosas projects in museums, including Forêt (2022), the choreography De Keersmaeker created together with Némo Flouret for the Louvre in Paris. Film maker Evi Cats documented the creation process of this new performance. The film is temporarily available here.

Few subjects in art history are as omnipresent as that of the relationship between mother and child. It touches on existential themes and therefore speaks to many on a personal level. We are most familiar with it in the form of the ‘Madonna and Child’, which was very popular in Western painting in the late Middle Ages and early modern period, a period that is well represented at the KMSKA.

The choreography started from a work by Jean Fouquet (Madonna Surrounded by Seraphim and Cherubim, 1450) and was conceived as a trajectory that develops to cover the entire second floor of the KMSKA. Ten dancers and ten children entered into dialogue with works by Jan van Eyck, Peter Paul Rubens, Lucas Cranach, Anthony Van Dyck and others. In short solos and duets, they explored the duality, relationality and liminality that characterize the parent-child relationship. The dancers explored the images and the wide range of human experiences and philosophical questions they evoke. As a result, the performance resonated provocatively with current events: How to 'mother' in times of uncertainty, crisis and extreme violence? What does it mean to 'care' for future generations? How can we heal our relationship with the mother of all mothers, Mother Nature?