ANNE TERESA DE KEERSMAEKER, MESKEREM MEES, JEAN-MARIE AERTS, CARLOS GARBIN / ROSAS

For EXIT ABOVE, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker retraces her steps to the roots of dance and Western pop music. Ever since her first piece, My Walking is my Dancing, this has been one of her fundamental principles: walking as a basic form of movement, so well known that it is hard to stop thinking about it. With music that traverses the roots of pop, blues and its mysterious “sad notes,” intermediate zones, between major and minor, between pain and joy. Meskerem Mees, a flamenco singer and composer with Ethiopian roots, will compose a series of variations and adaptations of “walking songs” with Jean-Marie Aerts, sound architect of TC Matic, the legendary 1980s Belgian rock band fronted by Arno, together with dancer and guitarist Carlos Garbin.

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker founded her company, Rosas, in 1983, while creating the work, Rosas danst Rosas. A year earlier, she had created Fase, Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich, her début piece in which she was already exhibiting a rigorous exploration of articulated movement, from the simplest to the most complex forms. The relationship between movement and music is another key element in the choreographer’s concept of dance. Thus, Rosas has extended the art of dance as an act of writing movements in time and space and, over the years, has explored choreography in relation to other compositional forces, such as music, geometry, visual arts and language.

Coreography Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker / Created with and danced by Abigail Aleksander, Jean Pierre Buré, Lav Crnčević, José Paulo dos Santos, Rafa Galdino (danced by Nathan Felix-Rivot), Carlos Garbin, Nina Godderis, Solal Mariotte, Meskerem Mees, Mariana Miranda, Ariadna Navarrete Valverde, Cintia Sebők, Jacob Storer / Music Meskerem Mees, Jean-Marie Aerts, Carlos Garbin / Music Performance Meskerem Mees, Carlos Garbin / Schenography Michel François / Lights design Max Adams / Costume design  Aouatif Boulaich / Text and lyrics Meskerem Mees, Wannes Gyselinck / Opening Text Walter Benjamin Über den Begriff der Geschichte, Thèse IX / Dramaturgy Wannes Gyselinck / Rehearsal directors Cynthia Loemij, Clinton Stringer / Artistic Coordination and Planning Anne Van Aerschot / Assistant to the Artistic Director Martine Lange / Tour Manager Jolijn Talpe / Technical Director Thomas Verachtert / Technicians Jan Balfoort, Thibault Rottiers / Sound Antoine Delagoutte / Costum coordinator Veerle Van den Wouwer assisted by Els Van Buggenhout and Chiara Mazzarolo / Wardrobe Ella De Vos / Sewing Chiara Mazzarolo, Martha Verleyen / Managing Director Lies Martens / Distribution Frans Brood Productions
Production Rosas / Coproduction Concertgebouw Brugge (Bruges), De Munt / La Monnaie (Brussels), Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, Le théâtre Garonne (Toulouse), GIE FONDOC OCCITANIE (Le Parvis Tarbes, Scène nationale ALBI Tarn, Le Cratère Alès, Scène nationale Grand Narbonne, Théâtre Garonne) / World Premiere May 31, 2023, Théâtre National Wallonie- Brussels, presented by Théâtre National Wallonie- Bruxelles, De Munt/ La Monnaie, Kaaitheater and Kunstenfestivaldesarts / With the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels
This production is realized with the support of the Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government, in collaboration with Casa Kafka Pictures
Rosas is supported by the Flemish Community and the Flemish Community Commission (VGC)