Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.To unsuspecting Paris audiences, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s latest show looks like business as usual. A full house at the prestigious Théâtre de la Ville, where the Belgian choreographer has been a frequent guest over the past four decades; 90 minutes of carefully constructed dance geometry, at once nonchalant and cerebral.Yet Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione, a work co-created with the dance-maker Radouan Mriziga, is starting a season-long European tour under less than ideal circumstances. Shortly after its world premiere in May 2024, Flemish newspaper De Standaard published a damning investigation into De Keersmaeker’s management style, bolstered by an internal report commissioned in 2022 by her own company, Rosas. Employees made allegations of “dictatorial leadership” and claimed that she refused to abide by government rules during the pandemic, which she believed to be “a conspiracy”. (De Keersmaeker did not comment on the allegations.)Remarkably, little has happened since. Rosas has implemented, it says, a “transformation plan”. But the dance world’s response has been timid: unlike her peer Jan Fabre, who became persona non grata in the wake of accusations of sexual abuse and harassment (he was later convicted by a Belgian court of bullying and violence towards five women, and an indecent assault), De Keersmaeker has faced few questions about her future.That may be because, at 64, she is an institution unto herself. Her back catalogue of landmark contemporary pieces continues to draw significant crowds, and the school she founded in Brussels, Parts, has become the Oxbridge of contemporary dance, producing generations of choreographers as well as dancers. Mriziga, the co-creator of Il Cimento, finished his training there, and with this production, the De Keersmaeker train rolls on comfortably.Her choice of score — Vivaldi’s Four Seasons — certainly suggests a choreographer assured of her own craft. It is so overfamiliar that few want to tackle it onstage, and De Keersmaeker and Mriziga’s cool phrasing initially seems out of step with Vivaldi’s playful, vivid tableaux.Counter-intuitively, the duo opt to start with “Autumn”, marred here by some awkward horse-like prancing (and the odd audible neighing) from the quartet of male dancers. The next seasons bring more felicitous choreography, including an intriguing counterpoint to “Spring”: the four dancers step back and forth in simple double-loop shapes, intermittently extending an elegant arm out, like aristocrats performing a courtly dance.Il Cimento is as aloof as most of De Keersmaeker’s repertoire, with no overt emotion or reference to the natural elements that inspired the score. Still, it is well-paced, with extended sequences performed in silence, as if to restore a sense of quietness in between Vivaldi’s flights of notes. When the music return, the dancers tune into it without showiness, heel-toeing to highlight a rhythmic pattern or — in the case of a breakdancer in the cast, Nassim Baddag — spinning unhurriedly on his forearms.If dance were merely a “contest between harmony and invention”, as the Italian title (borrowed from the set of concertos The Four Seasons belongs to) implies, Il Cimento would be just another feather in De Keersmaeker’s cap. Yet knowing what we now know, celebrating her unreservedly has become a thorny proposition.Il Cimento doesn’t conclude with “Summer”: instead, the two choreographers return to “Autumn”, ending on a sombre note. De Keersmaeker herself is now close to the winter of her career. Will she right the Rosas ship? Part of her legacy depends on it.★★★★☆Tour continues, rosas.be
