IL CIMENTO DELL'ARMONIA E DELL'INVENTIONE Comes to Sadler's Wells in May
Performances run Friday 8 May - Saturday 9 May 2026.
Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Radouan Mriziga / Rosas, A7LA5 will present the UK premiere of Il Cimento dell'Armonia e dell'Inventione at Sadler's Wells Theatre from Friday 8 May to Saturday 9 May.
Using the recording of Antonio Vivaldi's ‘The Four Seasons' by violinist and collaborator of Rosas Amandine Byer and her ensemble Gli Incogniti as a starting point, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's new work, made with four performers, invites audiences to contemplate the climate crisis. Il Cimento dell'Armonia e dell'Inventione (The Contest Between Harmony and Invention) uses multiple strands of dance and music to create a unique choreographic language that aims to return to the core of Vivaldi's famous composition, and explore patterns present in the natural world. De Keersmaeker and Mriziga, who previously collaborated on 3ird5 @ w9rk in 2020, share a keen interest in geometry, nature, and our increasingly troubling relationship with our natural environment.
Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker founded Rosas in 1983 in Belgium. Her choreographic practice is grounded in a rigorous exploration of the relationship between dance and music and draws its formal principles from geometry, numerical patterns, the natural world, and social structures. With Rosas, she has created a wide-ranging body of work engaging the musical structures and scores of several periods, from early music to contemporary and popular idioms. Rosas is a Sadler's Wells International Associate Company and previous work presented at Sadler's Wells Theatre, most recently includes 2024's EXIT ABOVE after the tempest / d'après la tempête / naar de storm.
Choreographer Radouan Mriziga studied dance in Morocco, Tunisia and France before moving to Brussels in 2008, and developing his own work in 2014. His unique, imaginative dance style and his choreographic approach, characterized by a combination of a rational, mathematical way of creating work and deeply spiritual, symbolic elements, has resonated with audiences ever since. . In 2017, Radouan Mriziga became an artist in residence at Kaaitheater in Brussels. In 2019, he created a performance for young dancers, 8.2., in collaboration with Moussem, het paleis and fABULEUS. In 2021, Radouan Mriziga became artist in residence at deSingel in Antwerp. Recent performances include Atlas, Libya, Akal, Ayur and Tafukt. Il Cimento dell'Armonia e dell'Inventione is Radouan Mriziga's second collaboration with Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. The choreographers previously worked together on 3ird5 @ w9rk (2020), created for the garden of La Maison des Arts in Brussels.
Sadler's Wells Artistic Director and Co-Chief Executive Sir Alistair Spalding CBE said: “We're delighted to have Anne Teresa de Keermaeker and Rosas back at Sadler's Wells for the UK premiere of Il Cimento dell'Armonia e dell'Inventione. We join Anne Teresa in her continuing intimate relationship with music, with a score that we know so well, shining a new light on it through her choreography.”
Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker said: “Dance is not only embodied celebration and consolation but also reflection. We can ask questions without making explicit statements. Considering the complexity and the extremeness of the times, to raise questions may be all we can do. What kind of past do we remember? What kind of future do we imagine? This music was written more than 300 years ago. It was full of surprises for us. It depicts man as alone, fearful and powerless in the face of nature. Its subject is simple, and everyone can relate to it. At the same time, it is multidimensional. It is layered: technically, as well as in terms of the story, and how it represents nature, and organizes time and space.”
Videos