Rosas Danst Rosas

It’s hard to believe that Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker choreographed Rosas Danst Rosas 26 years ago. Not only does the pure dance piece look as fresh and innovative as it did a quarter-century ago, but De Keersmaeker herself looks, at least from the stalls, like the stroppy 23-year-old she was when she made it (not a line, not a grey hair, no loss of physical strength). The Botox crowd will want to know her secret, while dance enthusiasts will just marvel at the classy, low-key ingenuity of the Belgium dance-maker whose youthful breakthrough piece continues to dazzle.

Rosas Danst Rosas is a 100-minute work for four female dancers. It starts small with the dancers on the floor, and builds into four sections, with the dancers moving to chairs, then walking, then running. It is abstract, in that there is no conventional narrative, although there is a physical story, or choreographic narrative as dance fans call it. There’s also, at least for my tuppance, considerable humour, even mockery of many of ballet’s most sacred conventions, not least the extreme precision, and extreme flirtatiousness of classical ballerinas.

De Keersmaeker eschews anything so obvious. Instead her dancers wear unassuming costumes, and focus on themselves and what they are doing, which is best described as a reflection on the intricacies of movement and the possibilities of pace. That may sound arcane and obscure, especially with the defiantly digital music, and, in truth, sections of the piece occasional drag. But for most of the time De Keersmaeker transfixes us with her cleverness and her charisma.

She also constantly reminds of her influence – her use of naturalistic gesture, her walking and running steps, her repetitions and variations, which are widely used by almost everyone. Few use them with the flair of De Keersmaeker, whose work you shouldn’t miss. Luckily, her new-ish Zeitung is still to come, with the added bonus of live playing of Bach, Shoenberg and Webern.