Rosas

As of 9 October 2020, Rosas will be restaging Drumming (1998). These will be the first performances of Drumming since the last tour, which ran between 2012 and 2016. This revival will be danced alternately by the company’s repertoire group and a new cast of young dancers.
 
Drumming (1998) is one of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s most iconic choreographies, written to the eponymous, minimalistic percussion score by Steve Reich. The music starts with a single rhythmic motif, which subsequently multiplies and unfolds into a rich cornucopia of textures including drums, woodwinds, brass and voice. Reich here ramps up the technique already used in his earlier composition Piano Phase: through minor tempo accelerations the musicians almost imperceptibly push their unison out of joint, resulting in a never-ending volley of canons. In the dance, the choreographic complexity was devised in a similar fashion: a single movement phrase serves as the foundation for an infinite number of variations across time and space. When the music stops and the bodies come to a halt, the audience realizes what they have witnessed: a wave of pure dance and pure sound, a vortex of vital energy.
  
Drumming is the result of intense collaboration between Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Dries Van Noten for the costumes and Jan Versweyveld for the scenography and lighting. They joined forces again three years later, this time to create Rain (2001), a second iconic group performance set to music by Steve Reich.
 
Drumming premiered in Vienna in 1998 at ImPulsTanz and has since been staged 233 times in 28 countries spread over 5 continents. The performance was also included in the ballet repertoire of each of the Opera of Paris and the Opera of Lyon. The performance is also regularly included in the curriculum for students at the P.A.R.T.S. dance school, who performed Drumming in 2010 in Kinshasa.
 
Drumming will be danced from the 9th to the 30th of October on the premises of Rosas in Brussels in an unusual setting where the audience will sit around the stage. This series is presented by De Munt / La Monnaie and Kaaitheater.
 
On 10 and 11 November, the performance will be staged in the Henry Le Bœuf hall at Bozar with live accompaniment by the Ictus ensemble. The performance’s subsequent tour will include the Parisian Festival d’Automne where Ictus will also perform the music live.
 
09 - 30 October, DRUMMING — Rosas Performance Space, Brussels
10 - 11 November, DRUMMING (LIVE) — Bozar, Brussels
26 - 29 November, DRUMMING (LIVE) — La Villette, Festival d'Automne à Paris - Paris

More info and tour dates