An endless series of hypnotic variations

(© Herman Sorgeloos)

This season, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, her Rosas dance company, and the Brussels contemporary music ensemble Ictus are giving us another chance to see what a stunning synergy can be achieved between dance and contemporary music. The choreography Vortex Temporum, to the music of the French composer Gérard Grisey, has already been acclaimed as a new milestone in Rosas’s oeuvre.

Exactly fifteen years ago, the same combination of Rosas and Ictus achieved something similar. Drumming (1998) was a surprising, pulsating group choreography in which De Keersmaeker formulated a visual answer to the repetitive music of the US composer Steve Reich, whom De Keersmaeker had previously paid a tribute to in her 1982 debut, Fase. The New Yorker’s percussion composition is based on a single rhythmic motif that gradually, by accelerating, mutates and develops into an endless series of hypnotic variations. The choreography follows exactly the same principle, taking as its starting point a single dance phrase, which is expanded to create a broad spiral of energy in which pure dance and pure sound are equal elements of a complex mathematical whole, impressive not only in its aesthetic impact, but also in its meticulous execution. This revival is by no means the first, but it is a special occasion: not only does Rosas provide an outstanding cast of dancers, but the music is performed live by the Ictus ensemble, conducted by Georges-Elie Octors.

DRUMMING LIVE 9 > 11/1, 20.30, 12/1, 15.00, €8 > 25, Kaaitheater, square Sainctelettesquare 20, Brussel/Bruxelles, 02-201.59.59, www.kaaitheater.be