EXIT ABOVE-After The Tempest

Review by Celia Ipiotis

When Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and her company Rosas comes to town, the dance community turns out. And so it did, packing NYU Skirball theater for her 2023 work EXIT ABOVE – after the tempest.  Inspired by Robert Johnson’s 1930’s song Walking Blues, the notion of walking as a nearly unconscious motion undergirds the 80 minute work.

An enormous white silky sheet hanging from the rafters drops amidst the smoke and rumbling metallic sounds revealing a swathe of 13 performers. In the midst of the tumult, the voice of an angel wafts through the air molecules. At first, it is difficult to discern who is actually singing. Eventually, Meskerem Mees materializes– a sliver of a singer with penetrating eyes donning a baggy shirt and Bermuda shorts. Soon a tall, lanky bald headed man with an electric guitar, Carlos Garbin breaks aways from the line-up and kicks up the music created by Mees, Jean-Marie Aerts and Garbin.

Garbin and Mees are the heart of a program that produces whirlpools of motion. Men and women in dresses and pants, both shed and add clothing throughout the evening. (After the show, a woman proudly told me she was the mother of Jacob Storer, the man in the voluminous black skirt.–a fierce dancer.)

A committed company, Mees and Garbin join the dancers proving Mees to be a totally authentic, and compelling mover. Indeed, Mees steals the show with her celestial voice, reminiscent of Aaron Neville of the the New Orleans Neville Brothers group. Later in the evening, Mees told me she was born in Ethiopia, adopted by Belgium parents, played classical guitar, found Leadbelly inspirational and induced De Keersmaeker to include her in the live performance as opposed to employing a recording of her voice. Hallelujah! De Keersmaeker agreed.

At times, dancers break into hip hop moves, joyous whipping of arms and legs blended into large swooping turns. Various geometric patterns hold clumps of dancers in slightly different modules throughout the evening. Indeed, an overall visual structure is evident, but it does not follow the rigorous , mathematical movement map associated with De Keersmaeker.

Walking does appear, fast and slow, slipping around a huge circle of dancers or spreading out in a line, and yet, its just as much about the lines of music stepping through the fog and into the light.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Celia Ipiotis

*** ALL PHOTOS BY Greg Kessler