Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione
“90 minutes of carefully constructed dance geometry, at once nonchalant and cerebral.” - The Financial Times ★★★★
In Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Radouan Mriziga set out to explore Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. The starting point for this new choreographic work is the exquisite recording of Vivaldi’s composition by virtuosic violinist and long-time Rosas collaborator Amandine Beyer and her ensemble Gli Incogniti.
Run time 90 minutes
Genre Dance
Language Language no problem
Dutch opening night Fri, December 13
Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione
The Four Seasons is one of the most well-known, iconic and reproduced pieces of music; a veritable ‘hit’ of the classical repertoire. It is also a striking ode to nature. De Keersmaeker and Mriziga, who previously collaborated on 3ird5 @ W9rk (2020), share a keen interest in the observation of nature, geometry, and embodied abstraction. They also share a concern with our changing and increasingly troubling relationship to our natural environment. Contemplating the four seasons in nature by contemplating the nature of this musical composition not only inspires further explorations of patterns present in the natural world and celestial configurations as possible starting points for choreography, it also vividly brings to the surface the urgency of the impending climate crisis. Do we still have four seasons? In addition, Vivaldi wrote this music three hundred years ago in the Mediterranean, a region at the intersection of different continents. The Four Seasons thus also invites reflection on the circulations of knowledge, power, and histories this region represents.
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In Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione, multiple strands come together to create a unique choreographic language. The piece aims to return to the core, the structure of Vivaldi’s famous composition and the many associations and emotions it evokes, while offering a choreographic counterpoint to it. At the same time the dance underscores that there may be something contemplative to be found in The Four Seasons, in its familiarity, and in the familiarity of nature.
About Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
In 1980, after studying dance at Mudra School in Brussels and Tisch School of the Arts in New York, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (1960) created Asch, her first choreographic work. Two years later came the premiere of Fase, Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich. De Keersmaeker established the dance company Rosas in Brussels in 1983, while creating the work Rosas danst Rosas. Since these breakthrough pieces, her choreography has been grounded in a rigorous and prolific exploration of the relationship between dance and music. She has created with Rosas a wide-ranging body of work engaging the musical structures and scores of several periods, from early music to contemporary and popular idioms. Her choreographic practice also draws formal principles from geometry, numerical patterns, the natural world, and social structures to offer a unique perspective on the body’s articulation in space and time. In 1995 De Keersmaeker established the school P.A.R.T.S. (Performing Arts Research and Training Studios) in Brussels in association with De Munt/La Monnaie.
About Radouan Mriziga
Choreographer and dancer Radouan Mriziga (Morocco, 1985) studied dance in Marrakech and Tunisia, and at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels, from which he graduated in 2012. Since then, he worked on several productions, including Half Eleven Summer Night by Bart Meuleman (Toneelhuis), Re:Zeitung (P.A.R.T.S. Foundation and De Munt) for which a young generation of professional dancers reworked Rosas/Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's Zeitung, Primitive by Claire Croizé, People in a Field by Simon Tanguy and Becoming by Youness Khoukhou. From 2014 onwards he started creating his own work for which he received support from Moussem Nomadic Arts Centre until 2019. After his first solo, 55, he created a group piece, entitled 3600, in 2016, followed by 7 in 2017. In 2017, Radouan Mriziga became an artist in residence at Kaaitheater in Brussels. In 2019, he created a performance for young dancers, 8.2., in collaboration with Moussem, het paleis and fABULEUS. In 2021, Radouan Mriziga became artist in residence at deSingel in Antwerp. Recent performances include Atlas, Libya, Akal, Ayur and Tafukt. Creation 2024 is Radouan Mriziga’s second collaboration with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. The choreographers previously worked together on 3IRD5 @ W9RK (2020), created for the garden of La Maison des Arts in Brussels.
Credits
choreography Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Radouan Mriziga
created with and danced by Boštjan Antončič, Nassim Baddag, Lav Crnčević and José Paulo dos Santos
music Antonio Vivaldi, Le quattro Stagioni. Amandine Beyer, Gli Incogniti and Alpha Classics, Outhere Music 2015
music recording Amandine Beyer, Gli Incogniti and Alpha Classics and Outhere Music 2015
musical analysis Amandine Beyer
poems Asmaa Jama, ‘We, the salvage' / Antonio Vivaldi, ‘Le quattro stagioni’
set and light design Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Radouan Mriziga
costume design Aouatif Boulaich
rehearsal director Eleni Ellada Damianou
assistant to the artistic director Anne van Aerschot
tourmanager Emma Hermans
technical director Thomas Verachtert
technicians Dag Jennes, Thibault Rottiers, Tom Theunis
coordinator costumes Alexandra Verschueren
assistant costumes Chiara Mazzarolo and Els Van Buggenhout
wardrobe Els Van Buggenhout
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production Rosas
co-Production Berliner Festspiele, Charleroi danse - centre chorégraphique de Wallonie-Bruxelles, Concertgebouw Brugge (Bruges), De Munt/La Monnaie (Brussel/Bruxelles/Brussels), Festival d'Automne à Paris, Festival de Marseille, ImPulsTanz (Wenen, Vienne, Vienna), Sadler's Wells (Londen/Londres/London) and Théâtre de la Ville (Parijs/Paris)
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)
photography Anne van Aerschot
