Rosas

Sketches for a duet by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker 

Hoketus by Louis Andriessen: this musical hapax, unlike anything else in the history of music, caught the attention of Thierry de Mey and Anne Teresa when it was first performed in the late 1970s. The work is an important source of inspiration for ‘Rosas danst Rosas’. It retains the American minimalist sense of gradual, rudimentary processes that are transparent to the audience, but distances itself from the contemplative Californian aesthetic: Hoketus exudes rebellious energy and a Stravinsky-esque taste for dissonance. The beautiful statement by Andriessen in the foreword to his piece ‘Worker's Union’, written one year earlier, is still particularly relevant here:
Only in the case of every player playing with such an intention that their part is an essential one, the work will succeed; just as in the political work.

The process is simple and diabolically virtuosic: two separate instrumental groups (on the left and right sides of the stage) fire chords at each other at full speed, like ping pong balls. The two groups do not play a single note simultaneously. The listener's brain reconstructs rhythmic patterns.

Today, the musical piece was reworked into a version performed by students from the GAME Ensemble (School of Arts Ghent) and musicians from Friuli Venezia Giulia. They are accompanied by two male dancers, José Paulo dos Santos and Lav Crnčević, who perform a new choreography by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker for the occasion of the 164VANVOLXEM festival.

From the outset, the choreography is inspired by the gestural vocabulary of challenge and rivalry, but the two danced parts quickly develop into a complementary 'pas de deux'.