Fifty-five men, of all ages, most of them recruited via ads on the radio, succeed one another before the camera, with quick-fire editing; each speaks a sentence, or just a word...telling the story of Bluebeard, faithfully following Perrault's text.

The famous tale is doubly celebrated: for its exceptionally pure literary quality – undoubtedly, one of the most perfect models in the French language – as well as for its narrative power. Here it is questioned, playfully, via the use of cinematic editing.

Through the process of "browsing" these differences of accent and of cultural background underlying the declamation of the text, as well of personal involvement with the role of narrator, a strange force emanates from this rereading.

This installation – which should ideally be located in an enclosed, secluded space (a cellar, basements, the boiler room of a theatre or museum, an archives room, etc.) – combines the projection of Perrault's "text" on a screen or a white wall with images of "women of the past" projected by rotary projectors.

The sequences of flashes were shot in 1999 involving performers from Rosas during a staging of Bartok’s opera by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker for which Thierry De Mey produced the film and video images.

Thierry De Mey, born in 1956, is a composer and filmmaker. An instinctive feel for movement guides his entire work, allowing him to tackle and integrate a variety of disciplines. The premise behind his musical and filmic writing is the desire for rhythm to be experienced in the body or bodies, revealing the musical meaning for the author, performer and audience. He has developed a system of musical writing for movement used in pieces where the visual and choreographic aspects are just as important as the gesture producing the sound, such as in "Musique de tables" (1987), "Silence must be!" (2002) and "Light Music", which premiered at Lyon's Musiques en Scène biennial festival in 2004.

A large part of his music production is intended for dance and cinema. He has often been more than a composer for the choreographers Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Wim Vandekeybus and his sister Michèle Anne De Mey, offering his precious collaboration in the invention of "formal strategies" – to use a favourite expression of his. Among his main work let us mention "Rosas danst Rosas", "Amor constante", "April me", "Kinok" (choreographies by A. T. De Keersmaeker), "What the body does not remember", "Les porteuses de mauvaises nouvelles", "Le poids de la main" (choreographies by W. Vandekeybus), "Dantons Töd" (dir. Bob Wilson), "Musique de table", "Frisking" pour percussions, un quatuor à cordes, "Counter Phrases", etc.

He participated in the foundation of Maximalist! and the Ictus ensemble which created several of his pieces (dir. G E Octors). His music has been performed by major ensembles such as the Arditti Quartet, the Hilliard Ensemble, London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Modern, Muzikfabrik and the Orchestre Symphonique de Lille. Thierry De Mey's installations, in which music, dance, video and interactive processes work together, have been presented in events such as the Venice and Lyon biennials as well as in many museums. His work has received national and international awards (Bessie Awards, Eve du Spectacle, Forum des compositeurs de l'Unesco, FIPA, etc). The film/installation "Deep in the wood" (2002-2004) involved more than 70 dancers/choreographers. For the film "Counter Phrases" (2003-2004), nine composers answered his dance/film invitation : S. Reich, F. Romitelli, M. Lindberg, T. Hosokawa, G. Aperghis, J. Harvey, L. Francesconi, R. De Raaf and S. Van Eycken. In 2003, the working process with ATDK for "April me" was the subject of a documentary entitled "Corps accord", produced by ARTE which has also broadcast and co-produced most of his films.

Since July 2005, Thierry De Mey is artistic director of Charleroi/Danses along with Pierre Droulers, Michele Anne De Mey and Vincent Thirion.

In 2006, he realised an installation adapted from Perrault's tale, "Barbe Bleue" (Bluebeard), plus a film, "One Flat Thing, reproduced" based on the choreography by William Forsythe and broadcast by Arte in October. In 2007 he made From Inside for the Charleroi/Danses Biennale, an interactive installation in the form of a triptych. For the 2009 Charleroi/Danses Biennale, he created "Equi Voci", a polyptych of dance films accompanied by orchestral music and which includes "Prélude à la mer", a film based on one of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's most beautiful choreographies which he shot by the Aral Sea in October 2009. His latest film – "La Valse", choreographed by Thomas Hauert and the ZOO dance company – completes and close this project.

Source : Charleroi/danses

More information : www.charleroi-danses.be

Artistic direction: Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker

Creation: 1983

Rosas is the company of the choreographer and dancer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. It was founded in 1983 during the creation of the piece "Rosas danst Rosas". Since her debut in 1982 with "Fase", "Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich", De Keersmaeker has been engaged in a rigorous exploration and articulation of movement, from its simplest forms to its most complex. The relationship between movement and music is essential to De Keersmaeker’s concept of dance. Rosas has expanded the art of dance as an act of writing movements in space and time, and has over the years explored choreography in partnership with other compositional forces, namely music, geometry, the visual arts, and language. De Keersmaeker’s engagement of these disciplines has involved collaborations with experts—musicians, composers, visual artists, actors, writers—who have at different times been integral participants and performers in Rosas productions.

Concurrently with the creation of new pieces, Rosas continues to perform and teach the existing repertoire, which now spans a period of 30 years. In this way the company’s own artistic past continues to be passed on to new generations of dancers and audiences. Ever since De Keersmaeker’s early works began to gain international attention, Rosas has built a strong and vital presence in the dance world, engaging theaters, repertoire companies, opera houses, festivals, workplaces, exhibition spaces, and educational platforms. With the partnership and support of the De Munt/La Monnaie opera house, where Rosas was in residency from 1992 to 2007, and Kaaitheater, Rosas has had a consistent home onstage in Brussels, and has worked with those organizations to foster such projects as P.A.R.T.S., Bal Moderne, and WorkSpaceBrussels. These projects, made possible and propelled with the support of Rosas, have since their inception developed into entirely independent organizations, making space for new in-house projects at Rosas such as Dancingkids and RondOmDans.

The Rosas facilities in Brussels are a center of myriad artistic activities and resources in the performing arts. At present the campus is shared with P.A.R.T.S. and the contemporary music ensemble Ictus, and studios are also made available to WorkSpaceBrussels, the summer residents of Summer Studios, and the numerous companies and artists who come to work here. The site is one of the key places in Brussels where established and emerging performing artists can meet and interact in mutually enriching encounters.

Source: The company Rosas 's website

More information

rosas.be/fr