The Song

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Ann Veronica Janssens, Michel François

The Song

The Song is about a world that is rushing ahead of itself, dashing at an ever faster tempo. A world whose acceleration is increasing to the extent that standstill seems inevitable. As ever, at the heart of this whirlwind of change stands the body, at the eye of the storm. As a sounding board in a reality that is chaotically transforming.

In The Song, ten dancers – nine men and one woman – stand on an empty stage. It is stripped to its bare essentials. To the elementary constituents of theatre: light, sound and movement. The acting area marked out by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, together with the artists Ann Veronica Janssens and Michel François, is a desert. The arid land which in spite of itself gives life to new possibilities: a playful solo in which the body seeks out its own weightlessness or a group choreography like a flock of birds in full flight, the constantly shifting patterns at the same time a sample of mathematical precision and human inventiveness.

A performance by
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Ann Veronica Janssens, Michel François

Created with and performed by
Pieter Ampe, Boštjan Antončič, Eleanor Bauer, Carlos Garbin, Matej Kejzar, Mark Lorimer, Mikael Marklund, Simon Mayer, Michael Pomero, Sandy Williams

Foley Artist
Céline Bernard

Scenography
Ann Veronica Janssens, Michel François

Costumes
Anne-Catherine Kunz

Dramaturgy
Claire Diez

Musical advisor
Eugénie De Mey, Kris Dane

Foley artist advisor
Olivier Thys

Sound
Alex Fostier, Vanessa Court

Production
Rosas

Coproduction
La Monnaie/De Munt (Bruxelles/Brussel), Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, Concertgebouw Brugge

Première
24.06.2009, Théâtre de la Ville, Paris