Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Solal Mariotte dance Brel in Avignon: 'No middle ground, but radical and extreme.'

A sunlit square, in the heat of the day. Dead quiet it is, time for a nap. But then, behold, in the sweltering afternoon light, a girl dances, spinning around her axis, round and round, as if her life depended on it. Jacques Brel, he sang of the dancer. Women of twenty, thirty, seventy well, dancing, without saying anything, a lover smiling as she dances - listening to his music, you saw her appear before your mind's eye for years, there in that flat land, that Flanders land.

And now, for a moment, she actually takes shape, alongside so many other colourful characters from Brel's chansons in BREL, the new dance performance by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Solal Mariotte, which premiered at the Avignon Festival earlier this month.

Legendary quarry

The generation conflict, also something about which Brel sang, and which De Keersmaeker (65) and Mariotte (24) very playfully touch upon in BREL - They will come back to it later, in a conversation in a quieter place. On stage first, we see a wonderfully energetic and also moving performance, an ode if you will, to Brel's insane stage presence, his extreme drive and his heartbreaking melancholy, embodied in solos and duets against the backdrop of a quarry.

The Carrière de Boulbon, a legendary venue just outside Avignon's party scene, envelops his clear resounding voice while on the rocky walls his effigy occasionally appears, alongside other associative video projections evoking his chansons. Arranged chronologically they are, with De Keersmaeker dancing solo first, and Mariotte joining her after a few songs. And how.

Breakdance

Solal Mariotte impressed in Avignon and beyond two years back when he starred in Exit Above danced, the previous show of De Keersmaeker's acclaimed company Rosas. Mariotte has a background in breakdance, attended De Keersmaeker's P.A.R.T.S. course in Brussels, and apart from dance, she specialised in choreography. At some point, both discovered each other's fascination for Brel (while studying, Mariotte already made a dance to La valse à mille temps). It would take some time before it could concretely come to this performance - but now it is BREL there anyway. Under the headline 'De Keersmaeker dances the biography of her life' praises The Standard the production as a surprisingly personal one.

'Well, the story anchored in the lyrics of Jacques Brel, that does have an overlap with my story,' says De Keersmaeker during a conversation shortly after the French premiere. We are sitting in a quiet monastery garden at a long table, Mariotte opposite her. 'Brel is a Belgian, with Flemish ancestors. He is connected to Brussels, just like me. When he sings about a Flemish girl dancing, yes, it quickly has that connotation. But the performance is as much about Solal as it is about Brel as it is about me and our relationships to each other. It's that triangle - okay, that constellation is new.'

Humor

Besides personal BREL namely also already defined in terms of 'new', of a 'transition' in her artistic trajectory, she explains. 'I think people are surprised that there is humour in it. But every music you choreograph now requires a different strategy.' Bach, Reich, Vivaldi, Baez, opera, musical, to name but a few: it all came along in her 45-year career.

'I really grew up with Joan Baez, with a record my mother got when my sister was born, which I turned grey. We weren't really a musical family, had maybe twenty LPs. But Joan Baez... yes, that's where I later did my performance Once made on it. Oh, and you know what we also had? Liesbeth List sings Theodorakis. Great! That was another record.'

'Music is my first partner. For me, dance is intrensically linked to music,' says Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker in Quand elle danse, the book published in June by French journalist Laure Adler. Adler followed De Keersmaeker over a period of two years; the book is a fascinating reflection of their conversations about the (dance) arts and life. In it, she talks, among other things, about herself as a perfectionist student with a love for essays. 'The very first French essay I wrote was about Le Plat Pays By Jacques Brel (...) I was 14 years old.'

Generational conflict

Did De Keersmaeker's generation grow up with Brel's work, the roughly 150 chansons he wrote at a maniacal pace over 15 years, and the iconic images of his performances in the spotlight of l'Olympia - Solal Mariotte's generation has nothing to do with it. OK, virtually nothing.

Mariotte: "Of course not. I mean, it's not what we listen to. If you say Jacques Brel, French youngsters might know the name and, like me before, a few songs, probably the most famous ones. With all due respect, I had and have a lot of fun with Brel in the karaoke bar. 'It is only now that I realise that many people, like Anne Teresa and you, have grown up with it, feel really connected to it.'

Destructive frenzy

'I therefore wonder if a woman of my age who is Les Flamandes would dance, or who would have the same reading as Anne Theresa. Well, actually, of course, everyone has a different, individual relationship to each song. La valse à mille temps for me, for example, that has that frénésie, that frenzy, that acceleration threatening to spiral out of control, that self-destructiveness that belongs so much to Brel. He sang relatively briefly, a lot, and stopped abruptly; he had given it his all. He was not someone of the middle ground, he was radical, extreme. Fascinating I find him by now.'

Anyone who sees Mariotte Brel dance will get everything he describes here - and more, an experience you won't soon forget. He has since developed an idiom all his own, combining breakdance, P.A.R.T.S. influences and something elusive virtuoso. Songs like Bruxelles, La valse, the witty-biting Ces gens-là (a favourite of the duo) and softer numbers together with De Keersmaeker, it's a joy to watch; where De Keersmaeker can exude something ethereal, almost lonely, he goes full-on with confidence, a combination that embodies but does not simply illustrate their age difference: something both dancers keep away from at all times in their co-choreography. They incorporate its energy, each in their specific way.

25 chansons

After a long preparation - Adler mentions piles of books on Brel in the rehearsal room, De Keersmaeker herself praises the resources of the Fondation Jacques Brel - they arrived at this 25-song set. 'I think our first choice was very intuitive, very direct,' she says. 'The chronological order forms the dramatic line, we wanted to show his musical as well as a mental evolution, something that reflects what is happening with him.'

'In the beginning, we worked separately a lot. Because Solal not only wanted to dance himself, but also really research choreography, he also worked with two other dancers.' Mariotte: 'Yes, and we do have a different way of approaching songs, a different way of looking at movement, and so on. I was able to take the opportunity to delve even further into the craft.'

And so now there is this meticulously structured performance, with which they will tour briskly after Avignon. They have no fear that it will get boring, 'that's what we're paid for', says De Keersmaeker jokingly. But seriously: 'Who was it too? Yes, Winton Marsalis, who said: 'There is no freedom in freedom, there is only freedom in structure'.' Mariotte: 'In this open-air theatre, no two nights are the same anyway.' They chuckle: 'Just those critters alone.'