At first, there was a false alarm, released by the overwhelming mist of the stage, which extended the already long evening by another half an hour. In the end, it was a fitting contemplative start to the new monumental work of legend Anne Teresa de Kersmacker, which she presented on Tuesday as part of the ImPulsTanz Festival at Vienna’s Volkstheater. With “Mystery Sonata” revolving around a strange early Baroque act in infinite orbits.
De Keersmaeker is probably the world class choreographer who shows music the utmost respect. Her Bach arrangements are legendary. For “Mystery Sonatas,” which premiered in Bruges in February, its inspiration was drawn from 15 now-unknown rosaries by then-legendary Heinrich Ignaz Franz Bieber. An originally religious work of Marian devotion, which is condensed here for its superior content. Again, De Keersmaeker honors music as an equal partner and does not return it across the band, but allows highly complex beaver sounds, including deliberately “disconnected” violins, to be played live on stage by French violinist Amandine Bayer. Gli Incogniti Band.
Dancers from De Keersmaeker’s Compagnie Rosas maintain this eye level and freeze into vivid canvases while the original sounding instruments must be tuned frequently. However, the work of the Belgian choreographer is always more than just making music dynamic. In “Mystery Sonatas” too, De Keersmaeker creates spaces of only light and bodies. In the quiet stages, mountains of light pile up like ice arrows in the dark, while in the next movement the bare stage serves as a universe for the dancers.
De Keersmaeker combines stationary pieces on the podium and its distinctive measure of the entire stage space when running, relies on signature movements such as kicking the leg back like a galloping horse and envisions solos in the cast’s own characteristics, where the “mystery sonnets” feature a diversity of bodies. In a group, one always acts in his career, then joins the other again and again in the scroll before the person immediately breaks up again. A symbol of life, so to speak, but completely without a narrative.
At the end, the dancers revolve around each other like planets in orbit, then disappear from them one by one and leave the stage. The one thing that, as always, has no place in this Keersmaeker universe is humor. Except for a brief moment. Suddenly, Lynne Anderson’s country hit “Rose Garden” burst into the meditative world and conjured a different interpretation of the rose. And with a wink. go then!
(Service – “Mystery Sonatas / for Rosa” as part of ImPulsTanz in Volkstheater, Arthur-Schnitzler-Platz 1, 1070 Vienna. Choreography by Rosas: Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. Music direction by Gli Incogniti: Amandine Beyer. Costumes: Fauch Ryckebus. More From shows on July 13, 14 and 15. www.impulstanz.com/performances/pid1450/)
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