EXIT ABOVE after the tempest

Wuppertal Opera House, Kurt-Drees Str. 4, 42283 Wuppertal
Running time: 90 Min.

Buy tickets

The Belgian company Rosas, under the leadership of choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, will be performing their new creation EXIT ABOVE after the tempest at the Wuppertal Opera House in April 2024 as part of the preparatory phase of the Pina Bausch Centre.

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.

In terms of the music, the piece explores the roots of pop music and blues. The starting point for the performance is the song “Walking Blues” by legendary blues artist Robert Johnson. The journey leads back to Franz Schubert, the best-known singer-songwriter of the 19th century. Meskerem Mees, a fascinating young Flemish singer-songwriter with Ethiopian roots, will compose a series of variations, permutations and other adaptations of 'walking songs’. She is collaborating with Jean-Marie Aerts, sound architect of TC Matic, the legendary Belgian 80s rock formation, and with the dancer and guitarist Carlos Garbin.

EXIT ABOVE explores the tension between ‘marching together’ and ‘stepping out’, between romantic solitary ‘wandering’ and the political potential of a group of unarmed people walking together. Walking generates thoughts and dreams that reveal the extent to which our inner world is also a landscape – a landscape that can often only be traversed on foot. EXIT ABOVE – with its title quoting a stage direction from Shakespeare’s The Tempest – is also a piece about the precarity of our reality; the watershed moment we are facing. Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker is working with very young dancers on this future-themed work.

Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker has been a close associate of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch and Boris Charmatz for many years. Her company was invited to perform at all of Pina Bausch’s international festivals in Wuppertal (in 1998, 2001, 2004 and 2008). She danced with Boris Charmatz in her choreography Partita 2 (2013) and collaborated with him on his large-scale projects and happenings Fous de Danse (2016, 2017) and La Ronde – Grand Palais (2021). Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker has also been a member of the board of the Pina Bausch Foundation for several years.

In order to prepare for the opening of the Pina Bausch Centre, with its international production house and collaborative ethos, we are inviting exciting international artistic voices to Wuppertal over the coming years.

Choreography Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker

Created with and danced by Abigail Aleksander, Jean Pierre Buré, Lav Crncevic, José Paulo dos Santos, Rafa Galdino, Carlos Garbin, Nina Godderis, Solal Mariotte, Meskerem Mees, Mariana Miranda, Ariadna Naverrete Valverde, Jakob Storer

Music compositions Meskerem Mees, Jean-Marie Aerts, Carlos Garbin Music played by Meskerem Mees, Carlos Garbin Scenography Michel François Light design Max Adams Costumes Aouatif Boulaich Texts and lyrics Meskerem Mees, Wannes Gyselinck Opening Text Walter Benjamin Über den Begriff der Geschichte, Thèse IX Dramaturgy Wannes Gyselinck Rehearsal direction Boštjan Antončič, Cynthia Loemij, Clinton Stringer Artistic Coordination and Planning Anne Van Aerschot Assistant to the Artistic Director Martine Lange Tour Manager Jolijn Talpe Technical Director Thomas Verachtert Technicians Jonathan Maes, Arno Truyens Sound Alex Fostier Costume Coordinator Alexandra Verschueren assistiert von Els Van Buggenhout Wardrobe Els Van Buggenhout Sewing Chiara Mazzarolo, Martha Verleyen Production Rosas Koproduction Concertgebouw Brugge, De Munt (Brüssel), Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, Le théâtre Garonne (Toulouse), GIE FONDOC OCCITANIE (Le Parvis Tarbes, Scène nationale ALBI Tarn, La Cratère Alès, Scéne nationale Grand Narbonne, Théâtre Garonne)

World premiere
Wed 31 May 2023 at the Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles, Brussels, presented by Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles, De Munt, Kaaitheater and Kunstenfestivaldesarts

Promoter Frans Brood Productions
With the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels. This production is realized with the support of the Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government, in collaboration with Casa Kafka Pictures – Belfius

Rosas is supported by the Flemish Community and the Flemish Community Commission (VGC).

The performance of Rosas’ EXIT ABOVE After the tempest is part of the preparatory phase of the Pina Bausch Centre and is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and the City of Wuppertal as part of the preparatory phase. A project by Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch + Terrain Boris Charmatz, Pina Bausch Centre and Pina Bausch Foundation.