EXIT ABOVE – after the tempest / d’après la tempête / naar de storm

ABOUT THE SHOW

For EXIT ABOVE, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker retraces her steps: to the roots of dance, the roots of Western pop music. Since her earliest work, ‘my walking is my dancing’ is one of her guiding principles: walking as a primary form of movement, so familiar that we hardly stop to think about it. Also in terms of the music, De Keersmaeker embarks on a journey towards a starting point that is in fact an intersection: the roots of pop music, the blues, and its mysterious ‘blue notes,’ in-between zones, between major and minor, sorrow and joy. The starting point for the performance is the song Walking Blues by legendary blues artist Robert Johnson; even though the journey leads back to Der Wanderer by Schubert, the best known singer-songwriter of the 19th Century. Meskerem Mees, an upcoming Flemish singer songwriter with Ethiopian roots, will compose a series of variations, permutations, and other adaptations of ‘walking songs,’ together with Jean-Marie Aerts, sound architect of TC Matic, the legendary Belgian 80s rock formation around singer Arno, and with dancer and guitarist Carlos Garbin.

In EXIT ABOVE, walking as primal motion and the blues as musical source meet. Choreographically, De Keersmaeker always moves from organically opening up simple movement material toward spatial and physical complexity, using precise geometrical patterns. EXIT ABOVE explores the tension between marching together and stepping out, between romantic solitary ‘wandern’ (wandering) and the political potential of a group of unarmed people walking together, the individual and the collective, the line and the circle. The act of walking runs counter to the hegemony of functionality and efficiency. It is an effort that produces nothing aside from the passing of time and the crossing of space. However, walking also generates thoughts and reminiscences that reveal the extent to which our inner world is also a landscape – a landscape that can often only be traversed on foot.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Meskerem Mees is a 23-year-old singer-songwriter from Ghent who mainly performs folk music. She won Humo’s Rock Rally in 2020 and was awarded a residency at the Montreux Jazz festival that same year. Her debut album did, however, not arrive until November 2022. It appeared under the name Julius, a playful reference to the wild donkey depicted on its cover. With this record she made a name for herself also beyond our national borders. Almost exactly a year later to the day, she released an EP entitled Caesar, which continues the story told on the album Julius. Mees’ music is characterized above all by its apparent simplicity. By participating in this performance, Meskerem hopes to be challenged both on a physical and mental level. But, in the first place, she hopes to be inspired, so that, with newly acquired insights and knowledge, she can start constructing the new sound that we will discover when her second full-length album is released.

Born in Bruges, Jean-Marie Aerts (1951-2024) spent his childhood at the Belgian seaside.

The sixties: As a teenager, he discovered pop music and soon decided to learn to play the guitar. Being part of Zeebruges’ local band The Crew was a great opportunity to develop his skills.

The seventies: After living in Ghent for a brief period of time, he moved to Brussels. At RITCS (Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema & Sound) he met soulmates, and his dedicated self-study landed him his first “job” as an acoustic guitar player in the Shakespeare play As You Like It at the KVS theater.

Soon, his name began circulating as “the new kid in town.” He had the opportunity to sit in on studio recording sessions and was asked to perform with a.o. Raymond van het Groenewoud, Kaz Lux and Johan Verminnen.

In the late seventies, Leuvens’ local hero BIG BILL asked Jean-Marie to produce his first album. This was the beginning of his career as an artistic producer.

The eighties: Starting off as a hard-edged rock- and blues guitarist in the seventies, he fully revealed his wizardry as a member of T.C. MATIC. The Belgian band astonished audiences and critics alike all over the continent, with its urban sound paintings carried by an R&B-base.

His determined quest for the new, while embracing the fundamental values of purity, strength, and emotional honesty, led him to explore a diverse array of bands and acts throughout the eighties and nineties. In this way, he gained widespread acclaim and a rock-solid reputation as a musician, composer and studio-producer.

In the mid-nineties, he set up his own project. Recordings and rehearsals resulted in a fruitful creative process and in 3 albums AUTONOME, PARBLEU and DOMEZTIK, and Jean-Marie AERTS (JMX) live performances at a.o:

New Year’s Eve @ Luna Theater – Brussels, De Nachten festival – Antwerp, Pukkelpop festival – Hasselt, Exit event @ Ancienne Belgique – Brussels, Lokerse Feesten festival, and TAZ festival – Oostende.

Jean-Marie’s wide range of adventurous experiences in the studio include, among many others: T.C. Matic, Arno, The Neon Judgement, Jo Lemaire, Luc Van Acker, Urban Dance Squad, Alain Bashung, Elisa Waut, Babylon Fighters, La Fille d’Ernest, Odieu, Beverly Jo Scott, Ashbury Faith, Junkfish, Philippe Léotard, Cobraz, Kris De Bruyne, El Fish, Victoria Tibblin, Mira, Gorki, Paul St. Hilaire, Raymond van het Groenewoud, Damso, etc.

Carlos Garbin (Brazil, 1980) started his career at Companhia Municipal de Dança de Caxias do Sul in 1998. At the same time, he worked as a choreographer with local children for the social art project BPM – Batidas Por Minuto. In 2004, Carlos moved to Brussels, where he graduated from P.A.R.T.S. in 2008. During his studies, he was a dance teacher at Dancingkids. Carlos Garbin joined Rosas for the creation of The Song (2009). He subsequently danced in En Atendant (2010), Cesena (2011), Drumming (2012), Vortex Temporum (2013), Twice (2013), Work/Travail/Arbeid (2015), Golden Hours (as you like it) (2015), and The Six Brandenburg Concertos (2018). Carlos also participated in the museum projects Dark Red Research Project (2020) and Dark Red – Kolumba (2020), and was the Artistic Assistant on Mitten wir im Leben sind/Bach6CelloSuiten (2016) and on the opera Così fan tutte. Apart from Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker/Rosas, Carlos also collaborated on productions by other artists, including David Zambrano (Soul Project, 2006), Gabel Eiben (30 Something, 2020) and Lara Barsacq (Fruit Tree, 2021). Carlos Garbin has been playing country blues guitar for more than ten years. He traveled to the United States many times, to study and perform. He played the guitar in multiple Rosas productions, including The Song, Golden hours, Twice and Dark Red- Kolumba.

In 1980, after studying dance at Mudra School in Brussels and Tisch School of the Arts in New York, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (b. 1960) created Asch, her first choreographic work. Two years later came the premiere of Fase, Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich. De Keersmaeker established the dance company Rosas in Brussels in 1983, while creating the work Rosas danst Rosas. Since these breakthrough pieces, her choreography has been grounded in a rigorous and prolific exploration of the relationship between dance and music. She has created with Rosas a wide-ranging body of work engaging the musical structures and scores of several periods, from early music to contemporary and popular idioms. Her choreographic practice also draws formal principles from geometry, numerical patterns, the natural world, and social structures to offer a unique perspective on the body’s articulation in space and time. In 1995 De Keersmaeker established the school P.A.R.T.S. (Performing Arts Research and Training Studios) in Brussels in association with De Munt/La Monnaie.

CREATIVE CREDITS

Choreography
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker

Created with and Danced by
Abigail Aleksander, Jean Pierre Buré, Lav Crnčević, José Paulo dos Santos, Rafa Galdino, Carlos Garbin, Nina Godderis, Solal Mariotte, Meskerem Mees, Mariana Miranda, Ariadna Navarrete Valverde, Cintia Sebők, Jacob Storer

Also Danced by
Pierre Bastin, Niklas Capel, Nathan Felix-Rivot, Yuika Hashimoto, Robson Ledesma, Margarida Ramalhete

Music
Meskerem Mees, Jean-Marie Aerts, Carlos Garbin

Music performed by
Meskerem Mees, Carlos Garbin

Scenography
Michel François

Light design
Max Adams

Costume design
Aouatif Boulaich

Text and Lyrics
Meskerem Mees, Wannes Gyselinck

Dramaturgy
Wannes Gyselinck

Production
Rosas

Coproduction
Concertgebouw Brugge (Bruges), De Munt / La Monnaie (Brussel / Bruxelles / Brussels), Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, Le théâtre Garonne (Toulouse), GIE FONDOC OCCITANIE (Le Parvis Tarbes, Scène nationale ALBI Tarn, Le Cratère Alès, Scène nationale Grand Narbonne, Théâtre Garonne)

World Premiere
31 mei 2023 / 31 mai 2023 / May 31, 2023, Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles, Brussel / Bruxelles / Brussels
gepresenteerd door / présenté par / presented by Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles, De Munt/ La Monnaie, Kaaitheater en/ et /and Kunstenfestivaldesarts

ABOUT NYU SKIRBALL

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NYU Skirball’s programs are made possible in part with support from: the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; and the Howard Gilman Foundation; Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels; Culture Ireland; The Shubert Foundation; Collins Building Services; General Delegation of the Government of Flanders to the USA; Goethe Institut New York with support from the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany; Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation; Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation; New England Foundation for the Arts; Harkness Foundation for Dance; and Marta Heflin Foundation; as well as our valued donors through memberships, commissioning, and Allies for Arts Access Fund support.

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