Anne Teresa De Keesrmaeker in August DanceFestival.
[13.08.14]

This year’s August DanceFestival offers glimpses to the peripheries of contemporary performing arts through time and content.


It is a great pleasure to announce that on 30th and 31th August, Estonian audience has the chance to see a performance of the master of contemporary choreography that has become a classic. Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker visits Estonia for the first time, although her work has been showed earlier – in 2010 the students of her school P.A.R.T.S performed another legendary piece on Steve Reich’s music, „Drumming“, in August DanceFestival.


Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker  (born 1960, Belgium) is without doubt one of the most important and prominent choreographers and developers of contemporary dance in the world. She did not study dance until her last year of high school, instead studying music, specifically the flute. After studies at Maurice Béjart's school Mudra in Brussels and Tisch Arts School dance department of New York University, she started her career as a choreographer. The breakthrough came with her second performance „Fase, four movements to the music of Steve Reich" (1982) which can be seen in this years festival. That classical duet was retaken into mängukavva in 1993 and De Keersmaeker herself is still performing in this piece.


In 1983 she founded company Rosas with her performance Rosas danst Rosas that received a quick breakthrough. In 1995, Rosas and La Monnaie (Royal Opera of Belgium) jointly set up the international educational project PARTS, the Performing Arts Research and Training Studios.
From the beginning De Keersmaeker’s choreographic works have focused on the relation between music and dance. She has worked with compositions ranging from the late Middle Ages to the 20th century, premiering creations of George Benjamin, Toshio Hosokawa, and Thierry De Mey and collaborating with various ensembles and musicians. She has also investigated different genres such as jazz, traditional Indian music, and pop music. She has a great affinity with Steve Reich’s compositions and
has worked with his music in pieces such as Fase (1982), Drumming (1998), and Rain (2001). Her choreographies present an ever-evolving marriage between a refined sense of compositional architecture and a strong sensuality or theatricality. This unique signature has been recognized with many awards.


De Keersmaeker has also left the confines of pure dance and has ventured into the realms of dance and text, creating performances that blend the different disciplines. Several of her works have also been turned into autonomous dance films, directed by Thierry De Mey, Peter Greenaway, and De Keersmaeker herself, among others.


In recent years, she has strongly rethought and refined the core parameters of her work as a choreographer. prompted her to reconsider the bare essentials of dance: time and space, the body and its voice, its potential to move, and its relation to the world. 2003 showed yet a new evolution as De Keersmaeker for the first time used improvisation.


In 2011’s Avignon Festival one of her most grandiose performances, Cesena, was performed together with Björn Schmelzer and Belgium ensemble Graindelavoix. Maarius Peterson belongs also to this ensemble. Her most recent works are Partita 2 (2013), a duet with dancer and choreographer Boris Charmatz, set to Bach's partita No. 2 and Vortex Temporum (2013), on the music of Gérard Grisey performed by Ictus Ensemble. Last of which can presumably be seen in Tallinn during next year’s August.


 Performances on 30th and 31th August at 6 p.m in NO99. After the performance on 30th, guests have a rare opportunity to participate in a discussion with the author. August DanceFestival takes place on 21-31 August in Tallinn. Festival program can be found from www.tantsufestival.ee

Priit Raud,

curator and manager of the festival

Phone.: +372 5010419
E-mail: priit@saal.ee
www.tantsufestival.ee