Rosas Artistic Director and Choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker Choreographer and Company Profile 6 7.3.2006 Rain Feature 13 14 Unless otherwise indicated, all photographs Herman Sorgeloos 10-11.3.2006 Raga for the Rainy Season / A Love Supreme Feature Dancers Biographies Creative Team Biographies The Company 20 24 33 41 45 7,10-11.3.2006 Lyric Theatre Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts To make this performance a pleasant experience for the artists and other members of the audience, PLEASE switch off your alarm watches, MOBILE PHONES and PAGERS. Eating and drinking, unauthorised photography and audio or video recording are forbidden in the auditorium. Thank you for your co-operation.
Choreographer and Company Profile 6 1980 MUDRA 1981 1982 1983 1988 1990 1992 1988 MUDRA 1992/ 1993 1994 1995 P.A.R.T.S. 1997 Tg STAN 1999 3 Tg STAN 5
2000 Tg STAN 2001 2001/02 2002 11 1963 2003/ 2004 Tg STAN Tina Ruisinger 7
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Rosas by Dominike Van Besien In the early 1980s, when the artistic climate allowed dance to gain ever greater prominence, a 20 year old Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker presented her very first piece, Asch. A former pupil of MUDRA, the school founded by Maurice Béjart, she was to give an entirely new orientation to dance in Flanders. In 1981, she went to study at the New York Tisch School of the Arts, where she had firsthand contact with American post-modern dance. That influence was obvious in her second work in 1982, Fase, four movements to the music of Steve Reich, which was extremely well received. In 1983, De Keersmaeker founded her own dance company, Rosas, which presented Rosas danst Rosas. Once again, the music by Thierry De Mey and Peter Vermeersch, composed in conjunction with the creation of the choreography was the driving force behind the dance. That special relationship between dance and music was to become a constant in Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker s work. Ottone, Ottone, from 1988, was her first dance production for a large stage. The taut lines of the preceding pieces gave way to a new aesthetic concept with a distinctly baroque feel. In 1990 De Keersmaeker created Stella and Achterland, with a score by Györgi Ligeti and Eugène Ysaÿe which 8 Tina Ruisinger
was performed live on stage. The musicians were visually integrated in the scenography and the dancers took their presence into account. In 1992, Rosas started its residency at the Belgian national opera, La Monnaie in Brussels. In this new setting, De Keersmaeker set herself three goals: to further intensify the link between dance and music; to establish a repertoire; and to create a new dance school in Belgium, to fill the gap left by MUDRA s disappearance from Brussels in 1988. By this time Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker s work had received full recognition, nationally as well as internationally. In 1992 her Mozart/Concert Arias Un moto di gioia was premiered in the famed Cour d Honneur of the Avignon Festival. The same year Peter Greenaway shot Rosa, a choreography specifically created for the screen. In 1993, the dance programme of the Holland Festival was entirely dedicated to De Keersmaeker, with several revivals and the premiere of Toccata. Amor constante más allá de la muerte (1994) is a performance that clearly marks the evolution in De Keersmaeker s dance. Out of a dance vocabulary entirely designed to suit her own body, the choreographer developed an idiom closely linked to specific performers. The strength of this dance lay in the association of a very personal, impetuous vocabulary and a particularly powerful structure. As the company expanded the choreographic language acquired an ever more classically rooted and exceptionally homogeneous vocabulary. In 1995 Rosas and La Monnaie set up the international educational project P.A.R.T.S. (Performing Arts Research and Training Studios), directed by De Keersmaeker. In the course of its four-year curriculum the students are trained in all major dance techniques. It also pays close attention to music and theatre, and aims to provide a sound intellectual background. At the end of 1997 De Keersmaeker once again gave her love of music free rein in Just before, comprising the works of Magnus Lindberg, John Cage, Yannis Xenakis, Steve Reich, Pierre Bartholomée and Thierry De Mey. Just before was a first major stage in the exploration of the joining of text and dance, sense and movement, language and the body. In this study De Keersmaeker was assisted by her sister, Jolente, a member of the theatre company Tg STAN. Three more stages followed: In March 1999 a female dancer from Rosas and an actor from Tg STAN performed together in Heiner Müller s Quartett, followed in May 1999 by I said I, an in depth study of the relationship between text and movement through Peter Handke s Selbstbezichtigung (Self- Accusation). In 2000 the work culminates in In real time, a large-scale project in which all the Rosas dancers, all the Tg STAN actors and the musicians of the jazz band Aka Moon are gathered on stage. The year 2001 saw the return to pure dance with Rain, set to Steve Reich s open and optimistic score of Music for 18 Musicians. Later that year, Small hands (out of the lie of no) meant the return to 9
intimacy a choreography danced by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Cynthia Loemij, on an oval stage surrounded by the audience. In the 2001/02 season Rosas celebrated its 20th birthday, and its 10 years as the company in residence at La Monnaie. For this occasion many events took place in Brussels text pieces were restaged; there was a festive Repertory Evening; repeat performances with live music of Drumming and Rain; and a big new creation (but if a look should) April me. In November 2002, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker danced her second solo since Violin Phase, part of Fase. This solo, Once, was set to Joan Baez In Concert Part 2 from 1963. The festivities celebrated around 20 years of Rosas were concluded by the publication of a 336 page book about Rosas and a big retrospective exhibition in the Brussels Palais des Beaux-Arts. The new group creation Bitches Brew / Tacoma Narrows in 2003 was the first Rosas production based largely on improvisation, to Miles Davis legendary album Bitches Brew. Entirely new was the fact that dancers were also allowed to improvise during each performance within a set time and space frame. In the 2004 creation, Kassandra speaking in twelve voices, De Keersmaeker again worked with her sister Jolente from Tg STAN. The result is a piece where text takes central stage, with hardly any music. * 2006-07 7-8.3.2006 9:00-6:00 10.3.2006 6:00-8:00 11.3.2006 2:00-4:00 * DÉPARTS www.hk.artsfestival.org Festival Plus Performing Arts Research and Training Studios (P.A.R.T.S.) * European School for Contemporary Dance, Brussels, Belgium Biennial Audition for the Academic Year 2006/07 Director: Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker 7-8.3.2006 (Tue and Wed) 9:00am - 6:00pm Studio 6, 3/F, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts Dance Video Screening 10.3.2006 (Fri) 6:00-8:00pm TV Studio, 3/F, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts Host: Edward Lam Rosas Dance Workshop Instructors: Marta Coronado and Clinton Stringer 11.3.2006 (Sat) 2:00-4:00pm Rehearsal Room 2, Grand Theatre, Hong Kong Cultural Centre * The Hong Kong auditions are organised within the frame of the DÉPARTS network, which is funded by the European Commission and in association with the Hong Kong Arts Festival and the School of Dance, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. For details, please refer to Festival Plus booklet or visit the Festival website: www.hk.artsfestival.org 10
Credits 2006 3 7 Tuesday, 7 March 2006 110 Running time: approximately 1 hour and 10 minutes with no interval Rain (2001) Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker Choreographer Music Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich Dancers Marta Coronado Fumiyo Ikeda Kaya Kolodziejczyk Giulia Sugranyes Elizaveta Penkóva Zsuzsa Rozsavölgyi Taka Shamoto Clinton Stringer Rosalba Torres Guerrero Jakub Truszkowski Jan Versweyveld Set and Lighting Designer Geert Peymen Assistant Set and Lighting Designer Dries Van Noten Costume Designer Anne-Catherine Kunz Assistant Costume Designer Anne Van Aerschot Assistant Choreographer Lise Vachon Rehearsal Director Georges-Elie Octors Music Analyst Rosas & La Monnaie / De Munt Producers Théâtre de la Ville, Paris Co-producer World premiere 10 January 2001, La Monnaie / De Munt, Brussels 13
Feature (1982) (1998) (1976) (1972) 14
15 AABABCABCD
Rain A Masterpiece 16 by Raf Geenens In Rain, like in Fase (1982) and Drumming (1998), Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker borrows a number of compositional principles from the music of Steve Reich. His Music for 18 Musicians (1976) is both the soundtrack of Rain and an important source of inspiration. Music for 18 Musicians, although written at the end of Steve Reich s properly minimalist period, still clearly achieves this minimalist ambition. The structure of this one hour composition is simple: a cycle of eleven chords is executed a process clearly audible in the performance. The eleven chords are exposed for a first time in the elaborate opening section. In each of the sections that follow, one of these chords is further developed for some five minutes. While the pianos and the marimbas continue the pulsating chord, singing voices and other instruments add a number of more melodic lines on top. After the eleven chords have passed in review in this way, a closing part follows in which the eleven chords are again quickly cycled through in succession. The choreography of Rain borrows a number of compositional principles from Music for 18 Musicians. Here are three examples. Throughout Reich s composition, in the most divergent passages, recognisable elements always return. The same motif is disguised (a melodic pattern is repeated for a while but the accent appears to shift throughout the melody), while the rhythms recall each other (almost all of the rhythms are based on the basic pattern that we know from Reich s 1972 Clapping Music) and the familiar elements continually reappear. Steve Reich prefers the term family resemblances. Like members of a family, the sections recall each other, despite their many differences. De Keersmaeker s choreography functions in a similar way. All the material was generated from two basic phrases (with the male phrase being in fact a complicated permutation of the female phrase ). It is Marta Coronado, in her duet with Jakub Truszkowski at the beginning of the performance, who first touches upon the elements of the female basic phrase. Immediately after this, in the trio at the beginning of Section II, these basic elements are again exposed, this time more elaborately. The same movements repeatedly surface in the sections that follow. This is not only the case from a technical point of view; it is also clearly visible to the spectator. Conspicuous elements add coherence to the whole. The characteristic hands covering the mouth for example just like more prevalent movements of the many half-turns and the numerous leaps just above the ground. If Rain makes a varied but coherent impression, this is principally because the same familiar elements repeatedly surface in an unfamiliar context.
A second compositional principle that is clearly audible in Reich s Music for 18 Musicians is a very specific contrast. On the one hand there is the pulse of pianos and percussion, a pulse that continues throughout the composition. Against this regular, almost mechanical rhythm is the rhythm of human breathing. In almost every section of Music for 18 Musicians there are pulses whose duration is determined by the rhythm of the breathing of the singers and the wind players: the notes are held for as long as their breathing allows. The same principle of construction is visible in Rain. Rain has a strict score its complex choreography leaves no room for improvisation. But there are a number of movements whose duration and reach are determined by the physical limits of the dancers. A third compositional principle of Reich s can be found in the transitions from one section to the next. These transitions are always indicated in the music by the metallophone. Just as the transitions in Balinese and West African music are announced by an easily recognisable drum solo, the resounding of the metallophone in Music for 18 Musicians indicates the coming of a new section. De Keersmaeker clearly emphasizes the beginning of each new part and the cues that the dancers give to each other. Jakub Truszkowski and Clinton Stringer lie on the ground. To start, one of the two (it happens 17
too quickly to say which one) yells yes! loudly and clearly. The barely concealed shout not only allows them to depart together, but also makes it clear to us that something new is coming. Thus Rain fascinates us because the complex structure shines through the surface of the choreography. However, the actual construction the mathematical web of inversions, permutations and spatial patterns that bind the entire choreography is never completely visible. Yet De Keersmaeker provides us with insight into its main threads. Is all of this new? Are there no other choreographers who allow the spectator a glimpse of the compositional principles in an equally exemplary way? Of course. A good example are the so-called accumulation pieces by Trisha Brown. The composing of the choreography is literally reflected in the structure (AABABCABCD... ). However, a deep chasm separates Rain from other, older, minimalist dance. In Rain De Keersmaeker does much more than execute compositional principles that can be followed by the spectator. Contrary to for example Brown s accumulations, the material of Rain is constructed by means of deconstructive rather than constructive mechanisms. But Rain distinguishes itself primarily because it also exposes a very different principle of construction, a characteristic with which each dance performance is inevitably saddled. The construction of a dance performance does not consist in movements alone. Movements exist only when performed by someone; they never occur in a void. A dance performance is thus above all a remarkable construction in which unfamiliar, abstract movements are attached to a concrete person. And this first, elementary principle of construction is made visible by De Keersmaeker. Rain consists not of dance movements but of dancing persons. Movements are never made by a generic whomever, but always by a specific someone. Rain continually reminds us of this fact. It is also precisely why the duet the De Keersmaeker theme par excellence occurs so frequently. The love duet is present as an unspoken possibility throughout the entire performance. A duet is a love story almost, said Balanchine. The closer Rain comes to its end, the more clear it becomes that the latter is connected to the former. The dancers never completely disappear behind the movements. Thus the romantic duets at the very end of the performance actualise a possibility that was already impatiently present the entire time. In fact each duet is always already a love story, De Keersmaeker appears to correct Balanchine. 19
Credits 2006 3 10 11 Friday and Saturday, 10 and 11 March 2006 2 20 Running time: approximately 2 hours with a 20 minute interval Raga for the Rainy Season (2005) Tampuras Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker Choreographer Dance Vocabulary Salva Sanchis and Rosas Music Raga Mian Malhar sung by Sulochana Brahaspati sarangi Sultan Khan tabla Zakir Hussain tampuras Amod Vardhan and Usha Sastri Dancers Marta Coronado Tale Dolven Fumiyo Ikeda Kaya Kolodziejczyk Elizaveta Penkóva Zsuzsa Rozsavölgyi Taka Shamoto Clinton Stringer Giulia Sugranyes 20 Interval
A Love Supreme (2005) ( Coltrane, J), Jowcol Music, Inc (Universal Music Publ N V) Choreographers Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker Salva Sanchis Music A Love Supreme tenor saxophone and vocals John Coltrane piano McCoy Tyner bass Jimmy Garrison drums Elvin Jones Acknowledgement, Resolution, Pursuance & Psalm ( Coltrane, J), Jowcol Music, Inc (Universal Music Publ N V) Dancers Cynthia Loemij Moya Michael Salva Sanchis Igor Shyshko 21
Jan Versweyveld Set and Lighting Designer Assistant Set and Lighting Designers Christophe Ragg and Daan Verhaeghe Dries Van Noten Costume Designer Assistant Costume Designers Aouatif Boulaich Anne-Catherine Kunz Lise Vachon Rehearsal Director Anne Van Aerschot Artistic Production Assistant Sara Jansen Researcher Freek Boey Production Management Costume Handling Emma Zune and Valérie De Waele Lighting Technicians Tom Van Aken Kristof Van Dijck Set Technicians Joris Erven, Jan Herinckx Koen Overloop Herman Sorgeloos Photographer Evelyne Sax Physiotherapist Thanks to Clive Mitchell, Czeslaw Wnorowski and Kris Van Aert Raga for the Rainy Season: Beniamin Boar, Johan Thelander, Jakub Truszkowski Thierry De Mey, Christian Ledoux, Ricardo Nova, Sujata Goel, Jetty Roels, Pascale Gigon Dirk Frimout, Jacques Vercheval and Madjid Khaladj A Love Supreme: Alice Coltrane, Ravi Coltrane, Marilyn MacLeod, Danny Capilian Joseph V Melillo, Jempi Samyn, Ashley Kahn, Dave Douglas, Rob Leurentop, Huub van Riel Miel Van Attenhoven, Fabrizio Cassol, Stéphane Galland, Michel Hatzigeorgiou, Fabian Fiorini Kris Defoort, Akram Khan, Farooq Chaudhry and Aliocha Van der Avoort Produced by Rosas and De Munt/La Monnaie Co-produced by Théâtre de la Ville Paris, Opéra de Rouen/Haute Normandie Teatro Comunale di Ferrara Premiere 24 May 2005, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts 2005, les Halles de Schaerbeek, Belgium 23
Feature 1980 (2000) (2002) (P.A.R.T.S.) : 24
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Raga for the Rainy Season / A Love Supreme 26 by Sigrid Bousset Since her very first dance productions in the early 1980s, the work of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker has been characterised by an exploration of the area of tension between movement and music. Over the last 20 years she has worked with a huge amount of extremely varied music. For the last few years she has been increasingly fascinated by Indian ragas and jazz. Her first encounter with jazz on stage took place during In real time (2000). Indian ragas turned up for the first time in April me (2002). Two years ago De Keersmaeker surprised us with Bitches Brew/Tacoma Narrows, a choreography based on the composition by the jazz legend Miles Davis. Bitches Brew was the first Rosas production in which improvisation formed an intrinsic part of the artistic product. During this process De Keersmaeker received support and feedback from Salva Sanchis, one of the first dancers to graduate from P.A.R.T.S., and who then followed his own course as a choreographer. The two choreographers found they had something in common in their shared fascination for jazz music and their exploration of the potential of improvisation. Just as in Bitches Brew, the further possibilities of improvisation were explored in Desh, but this time not only in jazz but also in Indian ragas. The relationship between composition and improvisation, and between the familiar and the unknown, is also at the heart of these ragas. The new performance, Raga for the Rainy Season / A Love Supreme, is in two parts: Raga for the Rainy Season is for nine dancers eight women and a man who perform a series of variations to the music of an Indian raga for the rainy season. A Love Supreme is a quartet in which two men and two women dance to this legendary piece of music by John Coltrane. The two works have completely different atmospheres, but at the same time share a common notion of spirituality. The Indian Mian Malhar raga, a Raga for the rainy season, sung by Sulochana Brahaspati, is a musical prayer on the melancholy brought about by the rain and by waiting. The various stages of waiting while it rains outside take the form of a horizontal experience of time, time stretched out, stillness and meditation. The movements are languorous, performed with a subdued, inward-looking concentration; bodies carry and are carried, dancers move in a unison which then breaks up, drifts apart; the little rituals from the daily lives of the waiting women can be seen in the stretched-out movement material, which is occasionally injected with a quick staccato, a desperate falling and getting up, followed by consolation. Because this waiting arouses resistance, the linear slowness is disrupted by passionate rebellion. Each individual breaks out of the endless flow of emotions and movements in her own way. The linear choreographic pattern is interrupted by circles and spirals, and the
dancers are like heavenly bodies in the universe, alone and yet linked together in a perfectly organised chaos. Each movement is fixed, in an obsessional pattern of structures and compositions, even though it does not seem to be so. By contrast, in the second part, A Love Supreme, there is more space than ever for instant composition, for the unexpected and the unforeseen. How do you take the tension between structure and freedom that is so natural in jazz music and convert it into dance? How does a group of dancers organise itself spontaneously during a performance? And how is the individual related to the group in this delicate relationship between planned structure and instant decisionmaking? How do you tell your story, as a group, as an individual? And how do you underpin each other s stories? All these questions formed the starting point for the two choreographers quest for improvisation as a dance idiom. Improvisation consists of the balance between making rules and finding freedom. Now that this challenge of improvisation has been taken up more than ever before, the importance of underlying structural principles becomes that much greater. De Keersmaeker has always been fascinated by patterns that organise time and space, and by series of numbers or spirals that imply an endless way of constructing space and then deconstructing it again. When starting from improvisation these fixed points are more important than ever. De Keersmaeker and Sanchis have had Coltrane s A Love Supreme in their minds for several years now, and have been rather hesitant about actually using it as dance music. A Love Supreme is one of the highlights of 20th century jazz and is remarkable for the tension between complexity and simplicity, a tension that has always characterised De Keersmaeker s choreography too. A Love Supreme is John Coltrane s ultimate spiritual statement. No one has taken the technical exploration of an instrument so far with the aim of reaching spiritual heights. The piece comprises four parts: Acknowledgement, Resolution, Pursuance and Psalm. It ends with an ecstatic poem by Coltrane an ode to divine love. The piece displays simplicity and complexity, an absolute beauty which is also closely tied up with the performance. It is no coincidence that the contrast between Raga for the Rainy Season and A Love Supreme is the contrast between the horizontal and vertical, the female and the male voice, the monophonic and polyphonic. These balancing opposites have always been the underlying motivation behind De Keersmaeker s creative drive. The two pieces are both complementary and opposite: the drawn-out energy and the horizontal stretching of time in the raga contrasts with the compactness and verticality of Coltrane s A Love Supreme, in which the ever higher transcendental movement is so moving. The restrained melancholy of the slowness in the raga is just as passionate as the intensity of the four individuals with their distinct motives in A Love Supreme. Both pieces display an extremely formal logic that is intended to generate beauty and emotions. It is this emotional approach which in the work of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker repeatedly transcends the purely formal choreographic exploration, and makes every dancer involved both strong and vulnerable. 27
Dancers Dancers Marta Coronado Tale Dolven Rosalba Torres Guerrero Fumiyo lkeda Kaya Kolodziejczyk Cynthia Loemij Moya Michael Elizaveta Penkóva Zsuzsa Rozsavölgyi Salva Sanchis Taka Shamoto Igor Shyshko Clinton Stringer Giulia Sugranyes Jakub Truskowski 32
Dancers Biographies Marta Coronado 1973 1981 1996 P.A.R.T.S. 19982001 Marta Coronado was born in Spain in 1973. She began classical ballet training in 1981 and has been a member of the Yauzkari Company and the new company of José Lainez: Piejuntoapie, where she contributed to the creation of Ara. In 1996, Coronado entered Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker s dance school P.A.R.T.S. and in 1998, became a member of Rosas. Her performance in Drumming Live in New York won her a Bessie Performer s Award in 2002. Fumiyo lkeda 19621979MUDRA 19831983 1992 1992 1997Woud Born in 1962 in Osaka, Japan, Fumiyo Ikeda took ballet classes from the age of ten. In 1979, Ikeda entered MUDRA where she met Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and in 1983 joined the newly-founded company, Rosas. Between 1983 and 1992 Ikeda contributed to the creation of, and danced in, all the company s productions. In 1992 she left Rosas, to return a year later as a freelance dancer. She was the rehearsal director for the choreography Rosa and has also contributed to several of Rosas films and videos. Ikeda left again and returned to Rosas in 1997, where she danced in the film Rosas danst Rosas and in the performance Woud, as well as contributing to the creation of Just Before, Drumming and the revival of Mozart / Concert Arias. Kaya Kolodziejczyk 1981 2000 2004P.A.R.T.S. 2004 Kaya Kolodziejczyk was born in Poland in 1981. She studied at the National Ballet School and the Chopin Music Conservatory in Warsaw, and from 2000 to 2004 at P.A.R.T.S. She participated in workshops in Frankfurt with William Forsythe and at Danceweb 2004 in Vienna. Her creations include Favourite Superhero and One for Francesca at P.A.R.T.S. Kolodziejczyk joined Rosas at the end of her studies and has danced in Bitches Brew / Tacoma Narrows and Rain. 33
Cynthia Loemij 1969 1991 Cynthia Loemij was born in the Netherlands in 1969. She took her first dance classes in secondary school and studied teacher training in classical and modern dance at the Dance Academy of Rotterdam. Different workshops during her training strengthened her conviction that she wanted to dance. Loemij joined Rosas in 1991 and has contributed to the creations of most of the productions. She has danced in the performances and the films of Achterland and Rosas danst Rosas, as well as in the revival of Mikrokosmos. Moya Michael 1995 1997 P.A.R.T.S. 2003 6 Moya Michael was born in Johannesburg, where she trained in ballet, under the direction of Dianne Sparks before joining the Johannesburg Youth Ballet. Between 1995 and 1997 she studied African and Contemporary dance at the Technikon Pretoria Dance Department, and was then awarded a three year scholarship to study at P.A.R.T.S. There she met Akram Khan and after completing her studies, moved to London where she became a founding member of his company, dancing and touring for five years, including appearing in his latest production, Ma. Michael also created, Hatch, which was performed at the London South Bank Centre in June 2003. The same year she was named the Standard Bank Young Artist for Dance at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa. Elizaveta Penkóva 1981 2002P.A.R.T.S.2003 1 Swedish citizen Elizaveta Penkóva was born in Russia in 1981. She studied ballet in Gothenburg and Stockholm, and graduated from the first cycle in P.A.R.T.S. in 2002. She also studied for short periods in Hungary and New York. Penkóva joined Rosas in January 2003 to take part in the creation process of Bitches Brew / Tacoma Narrows, Kassandra and the revival of Mozart / Concert Arias. 34
Zsuzsa Rozsavölgyi 19802000 P.A.R.T.S. 2003 Zsuzsa Rozsavölgyi was born in Hungary in 1980. She studied singing, contemporary dance and played the violin. She entered P.A.R.T.S. in 2000 and has danced in choreographies by Thomas Hauert and William Forsythe, among others. Outside the curriculum she participated in the Rabbit Project with David Zambrano in 2003. Her personal creations include solos, duets and Bal Moderne choreographies with Gabor Varga. In 2004 she graduated and joined Rosas. Salva Sanchis Dancer and Co-choreographer (A Love Supreme) 1995 P.A.R.T.S. 1999 42000 6 2003 Salva Sanchis was born in Manresa, near Barcelona. He studied at the Barcelona Institute of Theatre, specialising in body theatre, mime, sword fighting, acrobatics and Aikido. In 1995 he moved to Belgium to study at P.A.R.T.S. In April 1999 he premiered Reckless Reckoning, a duet made and performed in collaboration with Florence Augendre. In June 2000 he premiered the solo Gap, conceived as a preliminary study for the group piece Itch & Fear. Aside from his own choreography, Sanchis has collaborated regularly with choreographer Marc Vanrunxt and video artist Elke Vandermeerschen. For the last two years he has been teaching technique classes and workshops in Gent, Utrecht, Brussels and Antwerp. His most recent performances are Previous, Constant Relay and Gap. He joined Rosas for the creation of Bitches Brew / Tacoma Narrows in 2003. Taka Shamoto 1975 1995 P.A.R.T.S. 1997 8 Taka Shamoto was born in Sendai, Japan, in 1975. She began dancing at the age of three at the Sendai City Ballet School. At 16, she joined school of the Ballett Hamburg and after three years training, Shamoto decided to study contemporary dance at P.A.R.T.S. in 1995. There, she contributed to the creation of Common Essence and Symbiosis by Roberto Oliván de la Iglesia and to Prometeo directed by Robert Wilson. In August 1997 Taka Shamoto joined Rosas. 35
Igor Shyshko 19751993 1997 1997P.A.R.T.S. 1998 2000 Igor Shyshko was born in 1975 in Belarus. From 1993 to 1997 he studied ballet and modern dance at the University of Culture in Minsk. In 1997 he moved to Brussels to become a student at P.A.R.T.S., where he contributed to the creation and performance of Donne-moi quelque chose qui ne meurt pas by Claire Croizé, Milky Way by Thomas Hauert and Selfwriting by Jonathan Burrows. In 1998, Shyshko worked as a trainee with De Keersmaeker and Rosas during the creation process of Drumming and in 2000 he contributed as a dancer to the creation of Rush by Akram Khan. In 2000 he graduated from P.A.R.T.S. and became a member of Rosas, dancing in the revival of Drumming and contributing to the creation of Rain, April me, Bitches Brew / Tacoma Narrows, Kassandra and the revival of Mozart / Concert Arias. Clinton Stringer 1975 1997 P.A.R.T.S. 2000 2002 Clinton Stringer was born in East London, South Africa, in 1975. He started to take jazz and contemporary dance classes at the age of 17. After high school he went to Rhodes University and while there worked as a dancer and performed in the university dance company. In 1997 Stringer entered P.A.R.T.S., where he studied for a year and a half, leaving in 1999 to dance in the production Guerra d Amore, by choreographer Joachim Schlomer (Tanztheater Basel). In 2000 he returned to Brussels to join Rosas, dancing in the revival of Drumming and contributing to the creation process of In Real Time, Rain, April me, the Repertory Evening (2002), Bitches Brew / Tacoma Narrows, Kassandra and the revival of Mozart / Concert Arias. 36
Giulia Sugranyes 1977 1995 P.A.R.T.S. 1998 1999 Trappelend 2001 (2002) (2003) Giulia Sugranyes was born in Brussels in 1977 and grew up in Madrid. There she studied Spanish dance and Flamenco at the National Conservatory. In 1995 she entered P.A.R.T.S., graduating in 1998. Since graduation she has collaborated with choreographers Enzo Pezzella, Brice Leroux, Anabel Schellekens and Arco Renz, and created the solo D à bord, that was selected for Trappelend Talent 99. Together with Maarten van Cauwenberghe, she choreographed the duo Redial 2, presented at the Klaptstuk Festival and created the ensemble piece tijd à tijd with the group Polydans of Kortrijk. In 2001 Sugranyes became a member of Rosas. She danced in the revival of Drumming and has contributed to April me (2002), Bitches Brew / Tacoma Narrows (2003) and Kassandra. Rosalba Torres Guerrero 1974 1994 DCA 1996/97 1997 4 ( ) 1997 Rosalba Torres Guerrero is of Spanish French heritage, but was born in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1974. She took her first dance classes at the Geneva Music Conservatory and then moved to the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine L Esquisse of Angers, where she contributed to the creation of Bernardo Montet s Marguerites de l oubli, and the revivals of Dominique Dupuis s Visages de Femmes and Dominique Bagouet s Les petites pièces. In 1994 she created the solo piece Quatre du matin, j écoute Piaf and the following season she worked with Philippe Decouflé s DCA in Paris. In 1996/97 she joined Ismael Ivo s company, where she presented a second solo: Without any title. In April 1997 she participated in the creation process of Annette Leday s Cinderella otherwise with the Compagnie Keli. Guerrero became a member of Rosas in 1997 and has contributed to the creation of Just Before, Drumming, I said I, In Real Time, Rain, April me, Bitches Brew / Tacoma Narrows, Kassandra and the revival of Mozart / Concert Arias. 37
Jakub Truskowski 1977 1987 1996P.A.R.T.S. 1999 3 2000 1 2002 Jakub Truszkowski was born in Poland in 1977 and started his dance training in 1987 at the National Ballet School in Gdansk. He obtained his degree in 1996 and was admitted to P.A.R.T.S. in the same year. He danced in Fixing Dust and Hypothetical Stream 3, performed by P.A.R.T.S. students in 1999 in Brussels, Antwerp, Gent, Lisbon, Nanterre, Amsterdam and Charleville. In January 2000 Truszkowski joined Rosas, dancing in the revival of Drumming and participating in the creation of In Real Time, April me, the Repertory Evening (2002), Bitches Brew / Tacoma Narrows, Kassandra and the revival of Mozart / Concert Arias. Tale Dolven 1981P.A.R.T.S. P.A.R.T.S. 2006 Tale Dolven was born in Stavanger, in 1981. She studied ballet in Oslo and at P.A.R.T.S. She danced in Asking for...? in London and Set and Reset at P.A.R.T.S. After her studies she danced in Charlotte Vanden Eynde s Beginnings. Endings, and choreographed and danced her own piece Gone. Although it might change. Before joining Rosas for the Creation 2006, she took over one of the roles in the Raga for the Rainy Season. 39
Creative Team Biographies Steve Reich Music (Rain) 19571958 1961 1963 1966 1971 1988 1990 1999 2000 Born in New York, Steve Reich graduated with honours in philosophy from Cornell University in 1957. From 1958 to 1961 he studied at the Juilliard School of Music, and received his MA in Music from Mills College in 1963. In 1966 Reich founded his own ensemble of three musicians, which rapidly grew to 18 members or more, touring internationally from 1971. His 1988 piece, Different Trains, marked a new compositional method and received a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Composition. Different Trains was recorded by the Kronos Quartet in 1990. Major orchestras and ensembles around the world have performed his music, while several noted choreographers have created dance pieces to his music. He won a Grammy Award in 1999 for Best Small Ensemble for Music for 18 Musicians. In 2000 he was awarded the Schumann Prize from Columbia University, the Montgomery Fellowship from Dartmouth College, the Regent s Lectureship at the University of California at Berkeley, and an honorary doctorate from the California Institute of the Arts. Reich, who will celebrate his 70th birthday in October, is being honoured by a monthlong celebration in which the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Centre have joined forces to present complementary programmes of his work. 41
John Coltrane Music (A Love Supreme) 1926 E 1958 1960 19671982 1997 Born in 1926 in Hamlet, North Carolina, John Coltrane was always surrounded by music. His father played several instruments sparking Coltrane s study of the E-flat horn and clarinet. While in high school, Coltrane s musical influences shifted to the likes of Lester Young and Johnny Hodges prompting him to switch to the alto saxophone. He continued his musical training in Philadelphia at Granoff Studios and the Ornstein School of Music. After the war, Coltrane began playing tenor saxophone with the Eddie CleanHead Vinson Band, and his work with Jimmy Heath was where his passion for experimentation began to take shape. However, it was his work with the Miles Davis Quintet in 1958 that would lead to his own musical evolution. During that period, he became known for using the three-on-one chord approach, and what has been called the sheets of sound, a method of playing multiple notes at one time. By 1960 Coltrane had formed his own quartet and created some of the most innovative and expressive music in Jazz history including the hit albums My Favourite Things, Africa Brass and his monumental work A Love Supreme, which attests to the power, glory, love and greatness of God. Coltrane felt we must all make a conscious effort to effect positive change in the world, and that his music was an instrument to create positive thought patterns in the minds of people. John Coltrane died of liver disease in 1967. In 1982, the Recording Industry Association of America posthumously awarded John Coltrane a Grammy for the Best Jazz Solo Performance for the work on his album, Bye Bye Blackbird. In 1997 he received the organisations highest honour, the Lifetime Achievement Award. 42
Dries Van Noten Costume Designer (Rain and Raga for a Rainy Season / A Love Supreme) 1958 1982 1983 1985 1985 1998 10 1997 1998 Dries Van Noten was born in Antwerp in 1958. He studied in the Fashion Department of the Royal Academy of Antwerp where he created collections for Belgian and Italian labels as a young independent designer. Van Noten has been a finalist for the Golden Spindle in 1982, 1983 and 1985. In 1985, Van Noten launched his own business, presenting a limited collection in a small boutique in Antwerp. In October 1988, he received the Award of the Flemish Community. He excels in the art of marrying opposites simple with sophisticated, classical with inventive whilst still ensuring the perpetuation of certain traditions. By using subtle discrepancies he puts his personal touch to garments of classical appearance. As a Flemish stylist, Dries Van Noten is faithful to Antwerp and his production line remains for the most part Belgian. He has also created the costumes of Just before (1997) and Drumming (1998) for Rosas. 43
The Company General Director Kees Eijrond General Manager Guy Gypens Artistic Director Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker Administrator Els Steegmans Assistant to the Administrator and special projects Hanne Van Waeyenberge Financial Administrator Etienne Bracke Touring Administrator Inge Pieters Press and Promotion Koen Van Muylem Management Assistant Griet Boddez Assistant to the Artistic Director Anne Van Aerschot Rehearsal Director Lise Vachon Costumes Anne-Catherine Kunz Reception Johanna Buys Technical Director Freek Boey Assistant Technical Director Johan Penson Technicians Joris Erven Jan Herinckx Simo Reynders Jitske Vandenbussche Tom Van Aken Kristof Van Dijck Rosas is the company in residence at the Théâtre de la Monnaie, the Belgian national opera Rosas is supported by the Flemish Ministry of Culture www.rosas.be mail@rosas.be 45