For four days, the Belgian dance company Rosas will perform in the exhibition hall of the Neue Nationalgalerie with a performance developed especially for the building. Visitors will experience a unique interplay of architecture, sculpture, music and dance. Rosas’ series “Dark Red”, specially conceived for different museum spaces, was most recently shown at Kolumba in Cologne and at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel.
Image above: © Anne Van Aerschot
Dark Red” is the first time that an elaborate dance choreography, running over several days, has taken place in the iconic museum building by Mies van der Rohe. The expansive, transparent space of the exhibition hall forms the stage for the dance performance by Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, conceived especially for the Neue Nationalgalerie and created in collaboration with dancers Cassiel Gaube and Soa Ratsifandrihana, flutist Chryssi Dimitriou and visual artist Ann Veronica Janssens.
The starting point for the performance is the motif of breathing, which has long been an important choreographic principle of De Keersmaeker and takes on new relevance against the backdrop of the current pandemic. L’Opera per Flauto by Salvatore Sciarrino will be performed live, in which the vital need to breathe becomes a musical expression. Based on the process of breathing in and out, the dancers move through the space in the cyclical movement of an opening and closing spiral. In the performance conceived for the Neue Nationalgalerie, De Keersmaeker foregrounds a strong dialogue with the architecture for the first time. The choreography confronts the architectural austerity with the dancing, breathing body, allowing visitors to experience the famous museum building in a completely new way.
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (*1960) conceived her first performance in 1980 after studying dance at the Mudra School in Brussels and the Tisch School of the Arts in New York. In 1983 she founded her dance company Rosas, with which she has created a wide-ranging body of work that explores the musical styles of different eras. De Keersmaeker’s choreographic practice draws on formal principles from geometry and social relationships, offering a unique perspective on the movement of the body in space and time.
The performances will take place from 24 to 27 March 2022 during the museum’s regular opening hours.
Tickets cost 12 euros per performance and have been available since 9 March, 9 a.m., at the following link: www.smb.museum/tickets
In accordance with the SARS-CoV-2 Infection Protection Measures Ordinance of the State of Berlin, the 2G rule will no longer apply to visits to the National Museums in Berlin from 18 February 2022.
Curated by Joachim Jäger, Deputy Director Neue Nationalgalerie and Museum of the 20th Century and Irina Hiebert Grun, Research Associate Neue Nationalgalerie.
Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
WHEN?
Thursday, 24 March to Sunday, 27 March 2022
Tue – Wed 10am – 6pm, Thu 10am – 8pm, Fri – Sun 10am – 6pm
WHERE?
Kulturforum, Neue Nationalgalerie (Upper exhibition hall)
Potsdamer Straße 50
10785 Berlin-Tiergarten
