Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Jean-Guihen Queyras, and Rosas ravish in the distilled MITTEN WIR IM LEBEN SIND

• By drediman
• February 16, 2020
• No Comments

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Jean-Guihen Queyras, and Rosas in “Mitten wir im Leben sind” at NYU Skirball.

To coincide with this week’s opening of the controversial Broadway revival of West Side Story, the iconic Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker this weekend at NYU Skirball presented, for only a handful of performances, her latest work Mitten wir im Leben sind (“In the Midst of Life”). The six-part, evening-length dance piece is set to Bach’s seminal Cello Suites and danced by six members of her dance company Rosas – three men and two women, including Ms. De Keersmaker herself – and played by sensational cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras.

Over the years, I’ve seen quite a bit of Ms. De Keersmaker’s works, especially when they’ve been performed in New York by Rosas. The company’s recent visits have included The Six Brandenburg Concertos at the Park Avenue Armory and Vortex Temporum at BAM, not to mention a mini-festival of her influential early dances a number of years ago at the now-defunct Lincoln Center Festival. I’m happy to report that Mitten wir im Leben sind – which, until the final “movement”, is comprised of solos and duets (between Ms. De Keersmaeker and one of her dancers) –  is one of the strongest works of hers I’ve seen. The piece features her usual choreographic trademarks – bold pivoting movements, brute musicality, disarming directness, evolving repetition, and casual exactitude.

But there’s something entrancingly distilled and balanced about Mitten wir im Leben sind, which I had initially assumed would be a pared down version of The Six Brandenburg Concertos (which also features music by Bach). But I found myself far more satisfied by this sparse, ravishing work than that more elaborate previous concoction. I suspect this has something to do with the intimate dialogue and intrinsic relationship that’s established between music and dance. Indeed, the piece puts the music front and center alongside the choreography, with Mr. Queyras playing vigorously at various positions onstage throughout the intermission-less two-hour performance while the dancers swirled around him. Whatever the case, the work produces several seemingly throwaway moments of unexpected transcendence. Admittedly, appreciating Ms. De Keersmaeker’s poker-faced works requires immense concentration (patience, even), but the rewards, especially of this one, are handsome.

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MITTEN WIR IM LEBEN SIND
Dance
Rosas / NYU Skirball
2 hours (without an intermission)
Closed