Letter from Vienna: dance beyond the waltz

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It’s a wedding cake of a city oozing with history, culture and, well, strudel. In other words, Vienna -- Wien to locals -- seems to have it all.

Once home to numerous composers, including Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart, Austria’s capital is currently celebrating the 200-year anniversary of Haydn’s death. But the hoopla surrounding the musician who died here at age 77, when Vienna was in the hands of Napoleon’s armies, is not nearly so frenzied as the full-tilt marketing campaign that marked the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth three years ago: The Haydn budget -- around $56 million -- is only a quarter of what was allocated for the Amadeus year.

This picturesque city of 1.6 million, where Orson Welles filmed “The Third Man,” also knows a thing or three about dance. The Viennese waltz aside (elaborate balls rule during winter carnival season), the city’s contemporary dance scene soars with the month-long ImPulsTanz. Now in its 26th year, the festival is directed by Karl Regensburger, who co-founded it with artistic advisor Ismael Ivo.

The 2009 edition features 100 performances by 39 companies from around the world, with works by big-name choreographers Wim Vandekeybus, Jirí Kylián and Maguy Marin on tap, and collateral events, including 200 workshops and 13 film evenings.

Kicking off last week with a free outdoor concert by American tap guru Savion Glover, the festival moved into high gear Friday with a performance by Rosas, the 26-year-old Brussels-based troupe directed by Belgian superstar Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. With her latest work, “The Song,” the choreographer known for her musical sensibilities instead offered a mostly silent, nearly two-hour ode to the body.

Featuring nine men executing quirky solos, muscular duets, trippy trios and rabid unison running, the piece also made use of onstage Foley artist Céline Bernard. Hooked up with wrist and shin mikes, Bernard tapped shoes, crinkled clothes, twirled a rope and squeaked her hands around a small pool of water while the dancers moved to the funky sounds.

In another departure, De Keersmaeker, who makes an onstage appearance with Rosas later this month in a reconstructed work, collaborated with artists Ann Veronica Janssens and Michel François on “The Song.” Responsible for the show’s bare-bones look, the triumvirate designed the set, a giant Mylar cloud of a curtain hovering overhead, and the lighting, a disconcerting series of blackouts and harsh, interrogation-like spotlights.

An extreme test of endurance – for dancers and audience alike -- “The Song” sheds light on the human condition, something I’m also searching for in today’s Vienna.

-- Victoria Looseleaf

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