DUSSELDORF.- As part of their cooperation, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen and the tanzhaus nrw in Düsseldorf invite guests to experience pioneering early choreographies from the repertoire of the grandmaster Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. The internationally renowned Belgian choreographer and dancer is one of the most important representatives of the international dance scene and, with her award-winning works, has been making decisive contributions to the development of contemporary dance for many years.

While in the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, the choreographer is reconceiving her key work Fase, Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich for the monumental Grabbe Hall of K20 as a site-specific dance installation, in the tanzhaus nrw the work will be presented for one evening as a stage version. This not only creates a connection between the two institutions, the respective specific forms of presentation of the choreography, and the different experiences of time and space associated with them, but also addresses the question of the relationship between dance and installation, between body and movement, and their relationship to music.

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s Fase in the Grabbe Hall of K20
For the Grabbe Hall of K20, De Keersmaeker has developed an adapted version of her now iconic choreography Fase, Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich (1982).

With this performance, originally conceived in 1982, De Keersmaeker established at an early stage her own choreographic language, the basic elements of which still characterize her pieces, which are celebrated worldwide. In these, De Keersmaeker explores the complex, interwoven relationships between dance and music and, deriving from this, the creative work of the body with minimalist, repetitive structures and variations in space and time.

Fase is based on four compositions by Steve Reich (b. 1936), the legendary New Yorkbased composer and co-founder of minimal music — Piano Phase (1967), Come Out (1966), Violin Phase (1967), and Clapping Music (1972)—and takes up the principle of phase shifting through tiny variations. The strictly structured arrangement of the four movements of different lengths, comprisingthree duets and one solo, is based on geometric circular and line structures, which the two dancers use as orientation for their fast, minimalistically reduced and repetitive movements. The fascinating interplay of perfectly synchronized movement sequences and constantly changing forms and patterns creates a dynamic tension between the two bodies, which in some cases act in opposition and offset to each other.

For her two-week presentation at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, De Keersmaeker now for the first time breaks down her composition, originally conceived as a coherent stage version, both spatially and temporally into its four components. During the opening hours of the museum, starting every hour from 12:00 noon, the individual movements of the choreography will be danced one after the other on four gray, nine-by-ninemeter platforms by four dancers from the Rosas Company, founded by the choreographer in Brussels in 1983.

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker has a special relationship with Fase. She had danced the piece herself for thirty-six years before handing it over to a younger generation of dancers last year. In this new form, conceived specifically for the exhibition space, Fase once again celebrates its premiere, so to speak, in the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen.

Curator: Isabelle Malz