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Press Release: World-renowned dance company Rosas returns to Sadler's Wells with Rain in June 2017


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Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker / Rosas & Ictus

Rain
Tuesday 13 & Wednesday 14 June at 7.30pm
Tickets: £20
Ticket Office: 020 7863 8000 or www.sadlerswells.com

“Simply to watch the collective patterns set in motion by the dancers is entrancing” The Guardian

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s world-renowned dance company Rosas returns with her iconic piece, Rain. The Sadler’s Wells International Associate Company performs the piece live with contemporary music ensemble Ictus in London on Tuesday 13 and Wednesday 14 June.

Known for her appreciation of mathematical structure and the geometric use of space, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker pushes these concepts to their limits to form a deceptively simple piece in Rain, using layers of repetition and variation. Each of the 10 dancers plays a distinct role in their close group, before giving in to the power of the collective with an exuberant and playful camaraderie. The production is performed with live music by Ictus to Steve Reich’s masterpiece, the minimalist Music for 18 Musicians, which is inspired by breath rhythms. 

Accompanied by Reich’s music, a company of 10 new dancers occupy the stage, delineated by a curtain of fine strings, displaying a succession of virtuoso dance phrases. In Rain, De Keersmaeker approaches the company of dancers as a close-knit group of pronounced individuals who, one by one, play a vital role in the whole. Seven women and three men allow themselves to be propelled by an unstoppable joined energy that binds them together. It's a bustling network in which breath and speed is shared as well as that special comradery that forms when you are beyond fatigue.

After studying at the Mudra dance school and the Tisch School of Arts in New York, in 1980 De Keersmaeker created Asch, her first choreographic work. 1982 saw the premiere of Fase, four movements to the music of Steve Reich, one of the most iconic pieces of choreography of the era, which went on to become one of the inaugural works staged at the Tate Modern’s Tanks Gallery in London in 2011. In 1983 De Keersmaeker set up her Rosas company at the same time as creating the work Rosas danst Rosas. She established the P.A.R.T.S. dance school in association with De Munt / La Monnaie in 1995. Other major works include Rain (2001), The Song (2009) and Drumming (1998) for which De Keersmaeker received numerous awards. In 2011 Sadler’s Wells hosted a retrospective of Rosas’ early works, FaseRosas danst RosasElena’s Aria and Bartok/Mikrokosmos. In 2010 she premiered two works in medieval surroundings at the Avignon FestivalEn Atendant at the Cloître des Célestins and Cesena at the Cour D'honneur. Her other recent works include Partita 2 (2013), a duet with dancer and choreographer Boris Charmatz, set to Bach's partita No. 2 and Rosas & Ictus Vortex Temporum (2014), set to renowned French composer Gérard Grisey’s score of the same name, both at Sadler’s Wells. 

Ictus is a Brussels-based contemporary music ensemble. The ensemble's home since 1994 has been the Rosas dance company's premises. Headed by De Keersmaeker the dance troupe has put on fourteen productions in collaboration with Ictus (from Amor Constante to Drumming, and more recently Vortex Temporum). Ictus has also collaborated with other choreographers including Wim Vandekeybus, Maud Le Pladec, Eleanor Bauer and Fumiyo Ikeda.

Rain originally premiered in 2001, and this production is a Sadler’s Wells co-production with De Munt / La Monnaie (Brussel/Bruxelles) and Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg.

The Monument Trust supports co-productions and new commissions at Sadler’s Wells

Rosas is a Sadler’s Wells International Associate Company


Press night: Tuesday 13 June at 7.30pm


LISTINGS INFORMATION:

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker / Rosas & Ictus
Rain
Tuesday 13 & Wednesday 14 June at 7.30pm
Tickets: £20
Ticket Office: 020 7863 8000 or www.sadlerswells.com


NOTES TO EDITORS:

ABOUT SADLER’S WELLS
Sadler's Wells is a world-leading dance house, committed to producing, commissioning and presenting new works and to bringing the best international and UK dance to London and worldwide audiences. Under the artistic directorship of Alistair Spalding, the theatre’s acclaimed year-round programme spans dance of every kind, from contemporary to flamenco, Bollywood to ballet, salsa to street dance and tango to tap. 
Since 2005, it has helped to bring over 130 new dance works to the stage and its award-winning commissions and collaborative productions regularly tour internationally. Sadler’s Wells supports 16 Associate Artists, three Resident Companies, an Associate Company and three International Associate Companies. It also nurtures the next generation of talent through research and development, running the National Youth Dance Company and a range of programmes including Wild Card, New Wave Associates, Open Art Surgery and Summer University.
Located in Islington, north London, the current theatre is the sixth to have stood on the site since it was first built by Richard Sadler in 1683. The venue has played an illustrious role in the history of theatre ever since, with The Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and English National Opera all having started at Sadler’s Wells. Sadler’s Wells is an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation and currently receives approximately 9% of its revenue from Arts Council England. 

ABOUT ROSAS
Rosas is the company of the choreographer and dancer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. It was founded in 1983 during the creation of the piece Rosas danst Rosas. Since her debut in 1982 with Fase, Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich, De Keersmaeker has been engaged in a rigorous exploration and articulation of movement, from its simplest forms to its most complex. The relationship between movement and music is essential to De Keersmaeker’s concept of dance. Rosas has expanded the art of dance as an act of writing movements in space and time, and has over the years explored choreography in partnership with other compositional forces, namely music, geometry, the visual arts, and language. De Keersmaeker’s engagement of these disciplines has involved collaborations with experts—musicians, composers, visual artists, actors, writers—who have at different times been integral participants and performers in Rosas productions.
Concurrently with the creation of new pieces, Rosas continues to perform and teach the existing repertoire, which now spans a period of 30 years. Ever since De Keersmaeker’s early works began to gain international attention, Rosas has built a strong and vital presence in the dance world, engaging theaters, repertoire companies, opera houses, festivals, workplaces, exhibition spaces, and educational platforms. With the partnership and support of the De Munt/La Monnaie opera house, where Rosas was in residency from 1992 to 2007, and Kaaitheater, Rosas has had a consistent home onstage in Brussels, and has worked with those organizations to foster such projects as P.A.R.T.S., Bal Moderne, and WorkSpaceBrussels. 

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