Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker / Rosas / Ictus Ensemble

Vortex Temporum, in English: time vortex or whirlpool, refers to circular or spiral movements and patterns. These are the same figurations that also give many of ROSAS’s choreographies their dynamic cohesion. For Vortex Temporum, a unique 13-person ensemble consisting both of members of ROSAS and Ictus performing together, explore how time contracts and expands, swirls and unfolds in a choreographic counterpoint of sound, gestures, movements and spatial dynamics.

In her choreographic work, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker often engages with pieces of contemporary music. For more than ten years, her analytical attention was drawn to »Vortex Temporum«, a late work by French composer Gérard Grisey, who died in 1998. Her long engagement with the music has now culminated in her most recent choreography for ROSAS and the Ictus Ensemble, a group specialised in contemporary classical new music. Gérard Grisey’s instrumental composition builds on the physical qualities of tones and overtones, merging them into a broad spectrum of colourful sounds and harmonies.