Violin Phase is part of “Fase, Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich”, choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s very first performance, premiered in 1982. Fase comprises three duets and one solo, choreographed to four repetitive compositions by the American minimalist Steve Reich. De Keersmaeker uses the structure of Reich’s music to develop an independent movement idiom that doesn’t merely illustrate the music but also adds a new dimension to it. Both the music and the dance start from the principle of phase shifting through tiny variations: movements that are initially perfectly synchronous gradually start slipping and sliding, resulting in an ingenious play of continuously changing forms and patterns.

“The movements, most of them enacted in unison, take place below shoulder level and unfold in accordance with a determinate logic. It is twist and walk. So it’s not a virtuoso thing but the synchronicity between the two partners must be mechanically precise. In all modesty I believe that the entire piece is an exceptional combination of simplicity and complexity. (…) in Fase this ‘childlike’ dance is tied to a rigid sense of spatial organization. Yet it does follow geometrical patterns which are not all that complex either. Parallel lateral lines in Piano Phase. Movements around an axis in Come Out. Circles and various straight lines in Violin Phase. Diagonals in Clapping Music.” Michaël Bellon in : Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker Revisits The Debut: Back to the First Fase