NEW YORK, NY.- Images of women testing their bodies’ endurance have been swirling about the universe lately. There are pop stars like Taylor Swift and Madonna whose touring shows, as TikTok attests, shine a light on presence and physicality as these artists sing and dance, exploring the limits of what their bodies can and cannot do.
And then there is the contemporary choreographer and dancer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker who, at 63, is pushing her body, too, in a solo lasting nearly two hours. For “The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988,” De Keersmaeker is joined by the young Russian-born pianist Pavel Kolesnikov. There are costume changes — for both — and a spare setting dominated by foil.
On paper, De Keersmaeker’s version of “Goldberg Variations” is a solo. Onstage, it veers into duet territory. She needs Kolesnikov, and not just for his exceptional skills at the piano. When her physicality can feel distant and contained — a hybrid of deadpan and highbrow — his boyish energy gives her something to bounce off, allowing a less stoic side to slip through. In one such moment, she pushes him off his bench. His gentle dismay is adorable.
This “Goldberg” is stark and simple, painting a choreographic picture full of shadows and light that mercifully loosens up over time. So does De Keersmaeker, a respected experimentalist based in Brussels, who has turned to Bach several times over the course of her career. In 2020, just before the pandemic shut the world down, she performed at NYU Skirball in a group work she had choreographed to Bach’s cello suites. The highlight, again, was when she shared the stage with a musician.
She returned to the theater on Thursday for the North American premiere of “Goldberg Variations,” part of Dance Reflections, presented by Van Cleef & Arpels.
The opening night performance was dedicated to the memory of Steve Paxton, who died this week and who performed an improvised “Goldberg Variations” of his own in the late 1980s and early 1990s. “I listen with my whole body rather than just my ears and let my foot tap out the music,” Paxton once said in an interview.
De Keersmaeker uses the score as a choreographic map. (Alain Franco is credited as a musical collaborator.) It’s more methodical than responsive. The patterns of her spiraling movement — pivoting feet, swinging arms and legs, hops on a single foot, an outstretched hand pointing into the distance — were exacting and repetitive, in ways that at times seemed draining.
Gradually De Keersmaeker’s delicate nuance began to filter through. Seated with her legs stretched in front, her feet flexed, she rounded her back gradually so that she seemed to age in just a few dramatic seconds. Slipping to her side, her face blinded by light, she shaded her eyes — forming a diamond with her palms pressing forward — and gradually extended her arms. That was beautiful.
She was barefoot at the time and so was Kolesnikov who, in the first half, wore a white top with cutoff sleeves and black shorts — contrived casual — while De Keersmaeker danced in a sheer dark dress that revealed, especially as she became more spry and sweaty, that the only thing she had on underneath was a pair of briefs. (The costumes coordinator was Alexandra Verschueren, while the lighting and set design was by Minna Tiikkainen.) This was a dress pretending that it didn’t want to be sexy. For a time, De Keersmaeker seemed stuck in the same boat.
Around midpoint, De Keersmaeker kicked a pole from the back of the stage to the front; it rolled with jarring force, but before it could cruise off the stage, Kolesnikov got up and stopped it with his bare foot. The performers exited and, after a pause, returned wearing different costumes: Kolesnikov, now more formally attired in a white shirt, black pants and shoes, and De Keersmaeker in slinky flared pants and a large-collared top, both in pale gold.
OK: The gold reference was a bit much. But this new disco vibe seemed to refresh her. At one point, she pointed an arm in the air and struck a pose worthy of John Travolta.
There were times when, with a hint of exhaustion, she signaled the number of the score’s variation. And the stringent, systematic De Keersmaeker even flicked her fingers for bursts of air piano. It was sweetly whimsical. The constricted feeling of the first half dissipated as De Keersmaeker began to lighten up and unwind; she unbuttoned her collar and cuffs. Later, with the stage darkened, Kolesnikov played as De Keersmaeker disappeared into the shadows before returning in yet another look: a sheer pink top and silver sequined shorts.
Now she seemed to relish her body as she dug into the groove of the music, sometimes riding along with it, at other times shrugging it off to Kolesnikov’s emphatic, plush playing. Not long after “Goldberg” was created, De Keersmaeker said in a video interview, “I really love to dance. It’s really not a joke. It’s not vanity. It’s really my way of relating to the world.” In the end, that showed. And she showed up — a more wild version of herself, sequin shorts and all.
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Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, “Goldberg Variations”: Through Feb. 24 at NYU Skirball, nyuskirball.org
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.
