Rosas is serious but so seductive

10 April 2012

Because she’s so clever, and works with such serious composers, there’s a risk of over‑analysing Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker.

She deserves all the analysis going but that belongs in the universities.

Theatre‑goers should let themselves be seduced by her visual cashmere, and the ease of her dancers, modern-day goddesses one and all.

Watching a new De Keersmaeker piece such as Eight Lines, is like a hush-lush game of kiss chase.

The women seem to be running and skipping, perhaps after each other or to catch the eye of a boy.

They do this with extraordinary grace, not the starchy sort you get in ballet but a gentle elegance that’s like sun on water.

By that I don’t mean the quality of De Keersmaeker’s choreography, rather the way she evokes the sensation when summer light seems to morph you into air.

That’s not to say De Keersmaeker is lolling around. Her work is rigorously constructed, plus she’s a stroppy dame, something you see in Piano Phase, a duet for two women who look as spikey as they do welcoming.

The music for that, like all the work in this programme, is by Steve Reich, the American minimalist composer with whom De Keersmaeker has long worked.

To say she visualises his music is to state the obvious and also to understate her achievement.

De Keersmaeker is a spotlight, illuminating Reich’s work from new angles.

In Drumming Part 1, for example, she shows the music’s rhythm and reveals how Reich’s complex time signatures reflect our far from two-time emotions.

The only criticism is that in a work such as Four Organs, De Keersmaeker seems less adept at all-male dances.

It’s as if she is less inspired by their bulk and strength as she is feminine air and grace. Apart from that, this is bliss.

Tonight only. Information: (0844 412 4300. www.sadlerswells.com).

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker Rosas: Steve Reich Evening (Four Organs/Eight Lines/Piano Phase/Drumming - Part 1)
Sadler's Wells
Rosebery Avenue, EC1R 4TN

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