Vortex Temporum

here's what I said for Dance Informa http://dancemagazine.com.au/2016/01/vortex-temporum-by-rosas-at-carriageworks/ VORTEX TEMPORUM BY ROSAS CARRIAGEWORKS JANUARY 2016 Austere, ‘Minimalist’ and quite severe, this production, combining both the marvellous dancers of Rosas and the musicians of Ictus, both companies from Belgium, is for serious contemporary classical music and dance fans. It is part of the Sydney Festival . There is no emotion from the performers, just intense attention to the rigorously intellectual music and dance they present. There’s no set as such, just the black walls of the large Bay 17 of Carriageworks. A piano is visible and swirling, circular markings on the floor. The performers are in black costumes . The opening segment features the musicians – piano, flute, clarinet violin, viola and cello . Gerard Grisey’s striking music is sculptured, many layered and atonal. It is very complex and intricately structured, like De Keersmaeker’s choreography , which is melded with it, commenting on and at times mirroring/echoing it. The musicians stand and move around in precisely organised patterns but don’t dance. The piano however is dizzyingly shifted and circled around while Jean-Luc Plouvier the pianist continues to play and one of the dancers interacts with him. (The piano actually requires two dancers , representing the pianist's two hands.) Eventually the extraordinary dancers join them and gradually we observe that a dancer and musician are paired , so to speak . The dancers have an amazing soft, yet fiery line ,are fluid yet extremely controlled. When the dancers and musicians combine , the complicated rhythm and development of movement and music grows then ebbs then grows again. The eponymous ‘Vortex “ of Grisey’s work is the tempestuous centre of the spiralling dance and music. De Keersmaeker's vivid , precisely and delicately constructed choreography links all the performers yet is also individual . At times there is use of repetition , some in unison , sometimes gently staggered so that the phrase ripples through the group .At other points the dancers are like moving sculptural lines in space , fractured suddenly by explosive feline jumps or some everyday movements , backward walks , runs ,lunges , slithery squeaky rolling floorwork and held angular poses. For one segment there is a blistering male dance solo of swirls , drags , leaps and shuffles – everyone else has left the stage. Eventually his colleagues return and dance and music are reunited. We gradually come to observe that de Keersmaeker’s precise, intense choreography is revealed to be a 3-D expression of the structured geometry of the music. This work is about time.. in a straight line (or not), between past present and future ..being conscious of time in continual flux and transition from anticipation to memory, past becoming the future , future becoming past .. In the final section the atmospheric lighting glooms and softly dims, as the dancers pivot and run , eventually fading away and the music gradually drops to a whisper , then silence . The light that remains on the conductor’s hand and stand is mesmerizing and compelling – all is still and silent - then finis. Running time an hour Part of the Sydney Festival, Vortex Temporum ran at Carriageworks 15-18 January 2016 Choreography Anna Teresa de Keersmaeker Created with and danced by Bostjan Antoncic, Carlos Garbin, Marie Goudot, Cynthia Loemij, Julien Monty , Michael Pomero , Igor Shysko Musical director Georges-Elie Octors Musicans – Jean-Luc Plouvier , Chryssi Dimitriou , Dirk Descheemaker, Igor Semenoff, Jeroen Robbrecht , Geert De Bievre