Brilliant Corners

Emanuel Gat is one of the most sought-after artists in the world of contemporary dance. With his company Emanuel Gat Dance, which was founded in Tel Aviv in 2004 and is now based in Istres in France, he is a regular guest at all the major international festivals. His choreography for Le Sacre du Printemps in 2004 caused considerable controversy, when he interwove Stravinsky’s world of sound with his dancer’s salsa steps. His new piece Brilliant Corners, premiered in June this year at the Venice Biennale, marks a return to the themes which have distinguished his creative work thus far: investigating the interplay of music – including its absence – and dance, the influence of music on the perception of the length of a performance and the creation of a structure underlying the choreography which gives individual movements their meaning. In Brilliant Corners – whose title is a reference to the album of the same name by jazz great Thelonious Monk, whose artistry has been a major source of inspiration for Gat’s choreographic work – the choreography operates as a seismography of dance activity within a clearly defined square of light. Gat weaves the movements of his ten dancers into various levels of music and rhythm which he has composed himself over a two year period. He illuminates both the burning relevance of the dance moment and its extreme fragility by tracing vanishing structures and using multiple perspectives.

A performance presented by Pact Zollverein / Tanzlandschaft Ruhr on behalf of the Ruhrtriennale. Commissioned by Dance Umbrella (London), La Biennale di Venezia (Venice) and Dansens Hus Stockholm as part of ENPARTS – European Network of Performing Arts, supported by the European Commission. Produced by Emanuel Gat Dance and co-produced by; Montpellier Danse, Sadler’s Wells (London), deSingel (Antwerp). Emanuel Gat Dance is supported by: Ouest Provence, DRAC PACA , Conseil Général des Bouches du Rhone, Régie Culturelle Scènes des Cinés, Fondation BNP Paribas.