ANNE TERESA DE KEERSMAEKER, PAVEL KOLESNIKOV / ROSAS

The Goldberg Variations belong to Bach’s late period, in which the composer pushes the boundaries of musical themes in a play of variations, canons and fugues. The composition starts from a simple and quiet melody, joined with an underlying bass line, which steadily unfolds into a musical cosmos that reveals itself with extraordinary variety and unparalleled complexity.
Together with pianist Pavel Kolesnikov, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker continues her journey with Bach in dialogue with these variations. The large cast of The Six Brandenburg Concertos – her previous creation to music by Bach – is now brought back to a solo performance danced by De Keersmaeker herself. 
Spanning no less than one aria and thirty variations, the music challenges the choreography to a similar exercise in width: to find a form of dance capable of adaptation and flexibility while retaining an immutable core. To De Keersmaeker, it is above all an invitation to consolidate the road travelled as an artist.

Between January and March, the Rosas dance company presents two choreographies by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker with music by Johann Sebastian Bach, at the Gulbenkian Foundation and at Culturgest. In both cases, the music is performed live by first-tier musicians: cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras performs the Six Cello Suites in the first piece, while pianist Pavel Kolesnikov plays the Goldberg Variations in the second. A unique opportunity to hear and, in a way, “see” some of the most beautiful music ever written.