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Rain returns after almost a decade with a new crop of dancers

Return of critically acclaimed dance piece from Belgium's Rosas
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Rain returns after almost a decade with a new crop of dancers

Return of critically acclaimed dance piece from Belgium's Rosas

When minimalist American composer Steve Reich heard that Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker planned to set his 1976 work Music for 18 Musicians to dance, he sent her the kind of letter that would inspire confidence in anyone.

'I am very happy to hear you will be choreographing Music for 18 Musicians,' he wrote. 'I can't imagine anyone on earth doing a better job of it.'

The resulting dance piece, Rain, was premiered by De Keersmaeker's Rosas company in 2001 to great critical acclaim, and has since become one of her most popular works. A complex threading together of geometrical shapes set to continuous, uninterrupted music, the piece finds ten performers dancing tirelessly on a stage divided by a sea of hanging ropes.

Sixteen years later, De Keersmaeker has re-set the piece on a whole new crop of dancers (aided by some of the original cast she created it on – this isn't a piece that's thrown together easily).

Last seen at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2008, with a piece set to another Steve Reich work, Drumming, Rosas is now making a very welcome return.

Playhouse, 25–27 Aug, 8pm, £11–£35.

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