Mitten follows the final weeks of rehearsal of Mitten wir im Leben sind, a performance by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, her company Rosas and cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras, based on the six cello suites by Johann Sebastian Bach. The film offers an intimate glance into De Keersmaeker’s meticulous methodology, in which a choreographic universe is built up through a careful study of musical composition. This intense creative process of continuously reshaping and honing, characterised by De Keersmaeker’s inexhaustible longing for precision and detail, is reflected in the filmmakers’ patient look at the work of the choreographer, the musician and dancers.
“The camera of Olivia Rochette and Gerard-Jan Claes scrutinises how it emerges from a continuous circulation between the notes, the words and the gestures. Each scene, alternating between sessions at the table and rehearsals of dance sequences, redistributes the evolving places of these different symbolic arrangements. We see the stops, the retakes, the discussions: about a note, a rhythm, a trajectory.”
Gilles Amalvi
“During the editing process we realised fairly early on that the film is mostly about concentration. Not only human concentration during a working process but also in terms of a propelling dynamic. A creation process of Anne Teresa clearly works towards something, towards a point that is actually unattainable.”
Olivia Rochette and Gerard-Jan Claes
