Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker

In 1980, after studying dance at Maurice Bejart’s Mudra School in Brussels and NYU Tisch School of the Arts in New York, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker created »Asch«, her first choreographic work. Two years later followed the premiere of »Fase, Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich«. De Keersmaeker established her dance company Rosas in Brussels in 1983, while working on »Rosas danst Rosas«. Since then, she has created an extensive œuvre. From 1992 to 2007, the company held a residency at the Brussels opera house La Monnaie. There Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker created several operas and large ensemble pieces, which have since been in the repertoire of companies worldwide. Other works include »Drumming« (1998) and »Rain« (2001), both performed with the Ictus ensemble, »Toccata« (1993) to fugues and sonatas by Johann Sebastian Bach and »Verklärte Nacht« to Arnold Schoenberg’s string sextet. Interdisciplinary performances followed with the works »I said I« (1999), »In real time« (2000), »Kassandra-speaking in twelve voices« (2004) and »D’un soir un jour« (2006). In pieces such as »Bitches Brew / Tacoma Narrows« (2003) and »Raga for the Rainy Season / A Love Supreme« (2005) her choreography mostly based on improvisation.

In 1995 De Keersmaeker founded the school P.A.R.T.S. (Performing Arts Research and Training Studios) in Brussels in collaboration with the Théâtre La Monnaie.

De Keersmaeker’s latest pieces mark a visible »stripping down« of her choreography to essential principles: spatial constraints of geometric patterns, the exhaustion of physical parameters of movement from the utmost simplicity of walking to the fullest complexity of dancing and close adherence to a score for the choreographic writing. In 2013 De Keersmaeker created »Partita 2«, a duet between herself and Boris Charmatz. In the same year followed »Vortex Temporum« to the music by Gérard Grisey. In 2015, the piece found a place in a permanent exhibition at WIELS in Brussels under the title »Work / Travail / Arbeid«. Also in 2015, Rosas premiered »Golden Hours (As you like it)« to music by Brian Eno and to William Shakespeare’s »As you like it«. That same year, De Keersmaeker continued her exploration of the relationship between text and movement with »Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke« to the same-named text by Rainer Maria Rilke. In 2017, she was invited by the Paris Opera to direct Mozart’s »Così fan tutte«. Also in 2017, she created »Mitten wir im Leben sind / Bach6Cellosuiten« with cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras. Her creation to Bach’s »Sechs Brandenburgische Konzerte« premiered in the fall of 2018. In 2020, she created the choreography for the revival of the musical »West Side Story« on Broadway.

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker is a regular guest in Vienna, where she has shown her works at Impulstanz and the Wiener Festwochen. In the 2021/22 season, the restaging of »Große Fuge« will be the first time that a work by the important Belgian dance artist will be seen with the Vienna State Ballet.