Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker tg STAN
Quartett
© Quartett © Herman Sorgeloos ©
© Quartett © Herman Sorgeloos ©
© Quartett © Herman Sorgeloos ©
Conceived by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Jolente De Keersmaeker, Cynthia Loemij, Frank Vercruyssen
Text, Heiner Müller, Quartett
With Cynthia Loemij, and Frank Vercruyssen
Stage and lighting design, Herman Sorgeloos, Thomas Walgrave
Costumes, An D’Huys
A production by tg STAN ; Rosas
A Kaaitheater (Brussels) coproduction (1999)
In coproduction with La Monnaie / De Munt (Brussels)
In association with Les Spectacles vivants – Centre Pompidou (Paris) ; and Festival d’Automne à Paris
With participation from MC93 – Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis (Bobigny) as part of its artists residency programme
First performed on 4 mars 1999 at Kaaitheater (Brussels)
The Fondation d’entreprise Hermès is the patron of the Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker Portrait
In partnership with France Inter
Created in 1999, Quartett is the first collaboration between Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and the company tg STAN. In this production, which heightens the tension between body and text, theatrical syntax and the expressive capacities of dance, an actor and a female dancer question the sense relations of Heiner Müller’s text.
In focusing on the permanent state of war between two individuals, Heiner Müller retains no more than the mere skeleton of Laclos’ work, Dangerous Liaisons. Valmont and Morteuil, a man and a woman, exchange roles. The dropping of masks which ensues, sheds light upon the darker elements of this domination-based relationship, and the reversibility of masculine and female positions. Müller strips the work down to its bare essentials, and then proceeds to bring out the interplay stemming from this reversal of values at the very heart of language itself. The result is an overturning of all temporal and genre-related reference points. Whilst this is not the first time Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker has confronted dance with literature, as she did recently with Shakespeare - Golden Hours () - or Rilke, this collaboration with the company tg STAN constitutes one of her first incursions into the text domain. How can a sentence be converted into gestures, from sense to senses? In just the same way as Müller whittles language down to its bare essentials, tgSTAN and Rosas attempt to transplant their modes of representation, redistributing the places occupied by dance and acting. Onstage, an actor and a dancer embody two menacing figures. Amidst the tense to-ing and fro-ing, movement and word search for themselves, avoiding and clashing with each other all the while. In the re-working of this hybrid show, dance and the spoken word find themselves walking a tightrope, hovering above the abyss, on the frontier between silence and collapse.
Running time : 1h20
Performed in English with French subtitles
See also
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Radouan Mriziga / Rosas, A7LA5 Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione
In collaboration with the choreographer and dancer Radouan Mriziga, the challenge taken up by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker is to make Vivaldi's Four Seasons heard, using the tools of dance to hone the way we listen to this baroque masterpiece. Under the auspices of abstraction, the resulting alliance reconnects with the imaginary ecological world that is conjured up by this famous concerto.
Rabih Mroué, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker A little bit of the moon
As part of a special invitation by the Festival d'Automne, choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and director Rabih Mroué shared, over the course of ten months, their thoughts, concerns, doubts, and questions regarding politics, art and life. After numerous exchanges by videoconference, the two artists now come together on the site of the former industrial complex, the new home of the Fiminco Foundation. Together, for the duration of a performance, they will be drawing up the plans for a new world for all.
In the same place
Mathilde Monnier Territoires
In Territoires, Mathilde Monnier will be taking over the galleries of the Centre Pompidou during the course of a weekend in order to bring us a piece that deals with memory and circulation, "a collection of gestures from her work over the past thirty years". In doing so, the choreographer sets up the possibility of playing out memory in the present, from now onwards, or by means of anticipation.
Apichatpong Weerasethakul Rétrospective
Apichatpong Weerasethakul presents the complete retrospective of his films at the Centre Pompidou. It consists of his eight feature films, thirty or so short (and rare) films, various collective works, and two feature films produced by him.
Apichatpong Weerasethakul Night Particles
The Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul is guest at the Festival d'Automne and Centre Pompidou. His exhibition, featuring around ten video installations, transforms the former solarium into a nocturnal space inhabited by biographical and architectural reminiscences.
Apichatpong Weerasethakul A Conversation with the Sun (VR)
A Conversation with the Sun (VR), the Thai filmmaker's second foray into the realm of performance, uses virtual reality to set up the conditions for a collective dream.
Ligia Lewis Still Not Still
In Still Not Still, choreographer Ligia Lewis pursues her exploration into the silences and shadows of history. In this piece, the performers play out a score over and over again, the burlesque dimension of which makes it all the more tragic.
Forced Entertainment Signal to Noise
Over its forty years of existence, with Tim Etchells at the helm, the company has never stopped reinventing itself. And it continues to do so. Amidst an oscillating form of virtual reality, six performers find themselves deprived of their voices and their entire beings. The whole thing goes beyond all understanding... Welcome to this new world.
Sébastien Kheroufi Par les villages
Sébastien Kheroufi discovered Peter Handke's Par les villages at the onset of his artistic career. It evokes a writer's return to his native village. Amidst the twilight setting in which one universe declines in favour of another, the voices of the “offended and humiliated” break their silence.