Rosas Danst Rosas

Rosas danst Rosas, Roses Dances Roses, is a contemporary dance choreographed by a very divine creature named Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker which premiered as part of the Kaaitheater Festival in Brusels in May, 1983.

Structured around the phases of a day, the first movement represents the nighttime, the second is the morning, and the third is afternoon. For the fourth movement, the dancers go into a kind of overdrive; as de Keersmaeker puts it, “The fourth movement is a paroxysm of dancing, dancing, dancing without counting, over and over again, a kind of dépense.” Over the course of the piece, the dancers split into many different combinations and become physically exhausted. Anne Teresa de Keersmaker herself stated that, “We exploit every possible division and combination of four dancers, also the space in straight lines, diagonals, and finally a closed circle.

“Pure writing with movement in time and space. At its heart lies the relationship between movement and music. In some productions, the relationship between dance and text is also examined.”