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Emma McGrath, 09472572, Dance Research 2
Discussion of how the music and movement are layered in Fase :Four Movements to the Music of
Steve Reich by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker.
This essay examines the relationship between the layers of rhythmic patterns in Anne Teresa De
Keersmaeker’s “Fase: four movements to the music of Steve Reich (1982)”, specifically Piano Phase,
and those of the musical score. Fase has complex rhythmic patterns and strong layers separately in
the music and movement, the music works on a complex level with different time signatures, the
dancers slip in and out of phase with one another throughout the piece which is almost a
visualization of Reich’s score.
Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker is a prominent and influential choreographer in contemporary dance,
and the success of the piece Fase was largely responsible for the formation of the foundation of the
dance company Rosas, built around her, which went on to be very successful, becoming, in 1992, the
resident company of the Brussels Royal Opera, De Munt / La Monnaie.
"Systems Music" is a term which has been used to describe the work of composers who concern
themselves with sound continuums which evolve gradually, often over very long periods of time.
Steve Reich is among the most famous exponents of the genre. The most striking feature of the work
is repetitiveness or stasis. The works contain little or no variation of pitch, tempo, dynamics or
timbre. Certainly, the work exhibits virtually none of the characteristic concerns of traditional
Western music, such as harmonic movement, key modulation or thematic development. The listener
is invited, not to follow a complex musical "argument", but to concentrate upon a slowly changing
sound and focus with microscopic awareness on different aspects of it. Reich, has explored the
different ways in which a rhythmic figure can move out of phase with itself.
In his experiments with compositional techniques, Steve Reich (1936) developed the concept of
phasing music. His first work to use phasing in live performance (Reich had already experimented
with phasing in mixed tape loops) was "Piano Phase," and this piece illustrates the rhythmic
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complexity of phasing. The technique involves the play of a constant against a variable element,
moving cyclically from unity to tension and returning to unity. Steve Reich’s Piano Phase is a twelve
note even semiquaver melody consisting of five different modal pitches is set up in unison with itself
on two pianos synchronously. As the piece progresses, the lead player gradually speeds up until he
has moved one sixteenth ahead, playing the first note at the same time as the second note of the
second pianist. The process is continued, with the second pianist gradually becoming an eighth, a
quarter and so on ahead of the first until he finally passes through a cycle of twelve relations and
comes back into unison again. . The constant melody then changes to a 8 note sequence and the
second pianist repeats the speed increase until all 8 notes have been played, to end the piece both
pianists perform a 4 note sequence in unison. (Canice, 2006) the music is a high pitch with a fast
tempo, it creates counterpoint all the way through with two pianos playing at one time, the piece
has a texture created by it’s a-tonality, based around a base note, E, moving through F#, B, C# & D,
and then repeating rapidly. By this simple mechanical method Reich discovered a completely new
way of playing, allowing one to become totally absorbed in listening while one played. The music is
made up therefore of nothing more than the results of applying the phasing process to the original
twelve note melody, and as such it is simply process music.
Fase is a dance duet which also uses repetition as a rule. Lipton, ( 1999), states that “Using time and
repetition as her rules to play with, in Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker created a dance composed of a
solo and three duets (violin phase, piano phase, come out and clapping music.)” Where Steve Reich’s
Piano Phase is a 12 note piece of music played by two pianists, for Fase, two dancers pivot on the
spot sometimes in unison sometimes travelling across the space creating counterpoints, swinging
their arms as they move, and creating a swaying motion. Lipton (1999, p.47) states that “with the
first sounding of the electric piano tone, De Keersmaeker and De May started to pivot away from
and back to one another, accenting space with the nonchalant swing of an arm horizontally
onward”. Sudden changes occur in the pattern of movement which break the unison and the
dancers begin to move outside the musical lines. Occasionally they will prolong a movement, as if
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they are suspended in space, but suddenly move back into the turning motion. De Keersmaeker
creates her work in tandem with musical compositions, Felciano describes that the inspiration for
the piece was “the almost imperceptible changes and asymmetric periodicity of Steve Reich’s
music.” (Felciano, R, 1998, 184).
In De Keersmaeker’s choreography she has technically created many layers of movement, like the
music, an example of this is in figure 2, the dancers are both pivoting on the spot in unison, as one
breaks the unison and starts to speed up the movement she phases out with the other dancer, so
both dancers are facing opposite ways. Both the music and the movement slip out of phase with one
another which looks as if the dancers are complementing the rhythmic patterns created by the
individual tones of the piano. “The dancers stepping and pressing into space pointedly on the beat
became visualizations of the piano’s tones that sounded in even time intervals.” (Lipton, G, 1999,
p47) The choreography is graphically illustrated by the placing of lights, set to cast not only the
shadows of the individual dancers undertaking the performance, but a combined shadow, which,
given the technical ability of the performers gives the illusion of being the shadow of a third dancer,
while in fact being the combination of the shadows of the two. Jowitt (1998, P.139) describes how
“gradually De Keersmaeker increases her speed, slipping more and more out of phase with De Mey,
complicating their relationship. This is Reich’s process too. Sound and movements slide past one
another disquietingly”. You feel able to see where the music is taking you, but not always know
where the piece will end. This lighting design by Remon Fromont develops majestically as the dance
progresses and the dancers’ timings part them from step, culminating in the centrally cast shadow,
the combination, appearing to split into two symmetrical individuals before returning to form as the
piece returns to its balance. “The choreography shrewdly visualizes the way the strands of Reich’s
music slip in and out of phase with one another: now the women face the same way, now changes
of direction slide their patterns out of sync” (Jowitt, D. 2006, p.58). This offers a visual analogue to
Reich’s musical process, as De Keersmaeker and De May, dressed in flared pastel dresses, bobbed
hair clipped back, crisp white socks and white lace up shoes effortlessly and apparently free from
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emotion, at least visually expressionless, move their projected silhouettes in close harmony, and
subsequent counterpoint to the movement of the piece. Lipton (1999, p.47) contends “The dancers
stepping and pressing into space pointedly on the beat became visualizations of the piano’s tones
that sounded in even time intervals”.
The choreography never suffers because of the manner in which the music is structured. Feliciano
(1998, p.184) states that though “not visualisations in the sense that the movement mimics the
score, her dances, nevertheless are intricately intertwined with the music which resides at their
core”. The movement and music are so alike as they are so repetitive, they would still be interesting
because they both have a strong complex structure, this means that they could both be separated
and exist independently and still be as interesting. In figure one when the dancers perform their 26
turns, the music is the one piano playing the 12 note sequence, repeatedly, the relationship
between the dancers and the music on this section is the dancers are repeating their movement and
the music is constantly repeating the same phrase over and over again. Feliciano (1998, p.184)
further argues that “the duet follows Steve Reich’s approach in the way its spinning moves, raised
arm gestures, and ambling walking patterns go in and out of the phase with each other and the
music”.
In figure three the two dancers pause and suspend their movement before returning back to the
turns, here there is a contrast within the music as the dancers suspend their movements the music is
still repeating two tones on the piano which creates an interesting contrast.
In conclusion, the rich layering of textures of music and movement, and the harmony and unison of
the dance and piano, transferring to discord and disharmony, and returning to balance make the
work a masterpiece of visual art, enhancing and visually describing the mastery of Reich’s beautifully
simple musical figure which despite its breadth never exceeds five musical notes, arranged into a
figure of twelve. The technical skill involved in the execution of the piece has led to Fase being
performed across five continents of the world.
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