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May 5, 2017 h 21:00

A Love Supreme is a quartet choreographed by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Salva Sanchis in which four performers dance to the eponymous piece of music by John Coltrane, a highlight of twentieth-century jazz.

In “A Love Supreme”, highly intuitive free expression emerges from blues-based, rather straightforward musical structures; the work is renowned for its exploration of the tension between tonal and rhythmical complexity and simplicity.
This is translated literally in the dance: the choreographers bring together improvised and composed materials, interweaving and absorbing them into one another.

Embracing the ascetic and volcanic surge of the genius saxophonist’s music, the piece masterfully combines gestural elegance and spiritual elevation. A rare spectator experience.

“In non-Western music, composition and improvisation are not mutually distinct concepts. Indeed, improvisation is composition in the immediacy of the moment.” (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 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 Drumming (1998) and Rain (2001), complex geometric structures in point and counterpoint, together with the minimal motivic music of Steve Reich, created compelling group choreographies that remain iconic and definitive of Rosas as a dance company. In 1993 De Keersmaeker created Toccata to fugues and sonatas of Johann Sebastian Bach. Verklärte Nacht (1995 and 2014) unfolded De Keersmaeker’s expressionist side, bringing the stormy narrative of Arnold Schönberg’s late romantic string sextet to life. In 2013, the choreographer returned to the music of Bach in Partita 2, a duet with Boris Charmatz. Also in 2013, she created Vortex Temporum that in 2015 was adapted to a durational exhibition format under the title Work/Travail/Arbeid. Also in 2015, Rosas premiered Golden Hours (As you like it). Later that year, De Keersmaeker continued her research into the relationship between text and movement in Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke, a creation based on the eponymous text by Rainer Maria Rilke.
In 2015 De Keersmaeker was awarded the Golden Lion for a Lifetime Achievement for Dance for all her work at the Biennale in Venice.

Since his graduation in 1998, Catalan Brussels based choreographer Salva Sanchis has produced over twenty choreographic works, including collaborations with Marc Vanrunxt and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. In the period between 1998 and 2002, his work moved from a theatre-influenced style towards a very explicitly abstract approach to dance. Between 2002 and 2007 Sanchis worked first as a performer for the Rosas company (Bitches Brew) and subsequently as a guest choreographer, signing works in collaboration with Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker (A Love Supreme, Desh) and producing his own work within the company structure (Still Live, Salva Sanchis / Bruno Vansina Double Trio Live Double Trio Live). After a short period in which he set up his own organization to produce the pivotal work Objects in mirror are closer than they appear (2008), Sanchis joined the comoany Kunst/Werk in 2010, of which he is now the artistic director together with Marc Vanrunxt. With Kunst/Werk, he has produced his latest pieces: Now h e r e (2011), Angle (2012), and The Phantom Layer (2013). During all this time, he has established a preferential link with music, working often with live music by artists such as Bruno Vansina, Peter Lenaerts, Kris Defoort and Bernard Foccroulle. Islands is a project that ran continuously through the years 2014 and 2015. It consists of a collection of small dance pieces that will be presented both individually and in different combinations. In March 2016 his creation Radical Light premièred at Kaaitheater. For this work, Sanchis entered into dialogue with the music of Senjan Jansen and Joris Vermeiren.

choreography: Salva Sanchis, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
danced by José Paulo dos Santos, Bilal El Had, Jason Respilieux, Thomas Vantuycom
original version created in 2005 with Cynthia Loemij, Moya Michael, Salva Sanchis, Igor Shyshko
music: A Love Supreme, John Coltrane
recording: tenor saxophone, vocal: 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.)
lighting design: Jan Versweyveld
recast lighting design: Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Luc Schaltin
costumes: Anne-Catherine Kunz
rehearsal director: Salva Sanchis
artistic coordination and planning: Anne Van Aerschot
technical director: Joris Erven
costumes coordinator: Heide Vanderieck
technician: Luc Schaltin
production: Rosas
co-production: De Munt/La Monnaie (Brussels)
world premiere: 23.02.2017, Kaaitheater (Brussels)
Rosas is supported by the Flemish Community

[photo: Ann Van Aershot]