Counter Phrases

Counter Phrases is the re-creation of a 2003 project by composer and video artist Thierry De Mey and choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. It is interpreted here, in alternation, by the musicians of TM+ with the Symphony Orchestra of Mulhouse, and the band of Ballaké Sissoko. The show revisits the relationship between sound material and the gestures of the body. Rather than entrusting dancers with the responsibility for incarnating the music, composers are offered the opportunity to create music that is inspired by images of dance. Projected while the musicians play the compositions live are the ten films made by De Mey of De Keersmaeker’s “phrases dansées” (choreographic phrases). These spellbinding rhythmic images multiply the points of view inhabiting the dramatic space.

On stage, today’s musical sounds alternate as visual compositions and focal points explode across the screens. The “Westerners” mix styles, genres and inspirations, exploring spectral interiority, repetitive sequences, and rock influence. Playing under the direction of Laurent Cuniot, the twenty classical instrumentalists from TM+ and the Symphony Orchestra of Mulhouse pass the baton back and forth with the “Africans,” led by Ballaké Sissoko on the kora, accompanied by his band of Malian musicians playing guitars and the balafon.

A truly universal spectacle, Counter Phrases simultaneously reinvents the cine-concert genre, and challenges our way of thinking about dance as well as our outlook on music.