festival DANCE & PHYSICAL THEATRE
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RAIN
Return of critically acclaimed dance piece from Belgium’s Rosas
When minimalist American composer Steve Reich heard that Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker planned to set his 1976 work Music for 18 Musicians to dance, he sent her the kind of letter that would inspire coni dence in anyone. ‘I am very happy to hear you will be
choreographing Music for 18 Musicians,’ he wrote. ‘I can’t imagine anyone on earth doing a better job of it.’
The resulting dance piece, Rain, was premiered by De Keersmaeker’s Rosas company in 2001 to great critical acclaim, and has since become one of her most popular works. A complex threading together of geometrical shapes set to continuous, uninterrupted music, the piece i nds ten performers dancing tirelessly on a stage divided by a sea of hanging ropes.
Sixteen years later, De Keersmaeker has re-set the piece on a whole new crop of dancers (aided by some of the original cast she created it on – this isn’t a piece that’s thrown together easily).
Last seen at the Edinburgh International
Festival in 2008, with a piece set to another Steve Reich work, Drumming, Rosas is now making a very welcome return. (Kelly Apter) ■ Playhouse, 25–27 Aug, 8pm, £11-£35.
T O H C S R E A N A V E N N A
: O T O H P
17–28 Aug 2017 THE LIST FESTIVAL 59