Work/Travail/Arbeid
The whirlpool of time
In a performance the performers and audience witness the passing of time with a clear beginning and end. At an exhibition this experience is different. The exhibition doesn’t usually change after the opening, and rarely, if ever, does anyone experience it from beginning to end. Can a piece of choreography be executed in the same form, time, space and conditions of an exhibition? That intriguing question is at the heart of Work/Travail/Arbeid.
As a basis for her new work, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker uses Vortex Temporum. This choreography from 2013, set to the similarly named composition by the French composer Gérard Grisey, explicitly relates to time.
As rigorously as Steve Reich’s minimalist music carried the performance Fase (1982), the ‘whirlpool of time’ of Grisey’s composition inspired De Keersmaeker when she was researching the phenomenon of time in Vortex Temporum, and now finally too in Work/Travail/Arbeid.
concept and choreography Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker | initiated by WIELS | curator Elena Filipovic | artistic consultant Ann Veronica Janssens | dramaturgy Bojana Cvejić | artistic assistant Femke Gyselinck | danced by Boštjan Antončič, Balázs Busa, Carlos Garbin, Marie Goudot, Cynthia Loemij, Sarah Ludi, Julien Monty, Michaël Pomero, Camille Prieux, Gabriel Schenker, Igor Shyshko, Denis Terrasse, Thomas Vantuycom, Samantha van Wissen | musicians Ictus: Diego Borrello, Georges-Elie Octors (music directors), Jean-Luc Plouvier (piano), Chrisy Dimitriou (flute), Dirk Descheemaeker (clarinet), Igor Semenoff (violin), Jeroen Robbrecht (viola), Geert De Bièvre (cello) | music Vortex Temporum, Gérard Grisey (1996) | costumes Anne-Catherine Kunz | production WIELS & Rosas | co-production (Brussels) De Munt/La Monnaie, BOZAR, Ictus, Kunstenfestivaldesarts & Kaaitheater | supported by BNP Paribas Fortis, BNP Paribas Foundation, Rolex Institute | opening as part of Performatik 2015
