De Keersmaeker: Fase

There's so much I could say about "Fase". I revisit it every few years--it always captivates me, but it also always brings up something new. This time, two things stood out.

First, de Keersmaeker's repetition of this phrase teaches us (or reminds us of) the value of deep understanding. As the phrase goes on, your attention goes to the subtle differences each time they perform the phrase. You start to notice how many distinct parts there are to the entire work, and how these parts interact with each other to form the whole. You see small details that almost certainly would have eluded you had the phrase been abandoned after its initial appearance. And you realize that what you initially thought was straightforward is more complex than you could have ever appreciated were you to see it just once.

Second, the camera functions as an interlocutor. By changing the angles at which you are viewing the phrase, the camera highlights elements that may have been beyond your grasp from a different angle. At one point, deKeersmaeker's face breaks out into a small smile--a smile that would have been imperceptible from the initial camera angle. Through this change, the camera drew my attention to a part of the work that I had lost sight of--that these were people dancing, not mere bodies moving. But I did find myself longing to see the work in a theater from a fixed vantage point; sometimes we long to sequester ourselves away and see how far we can get thinking through something on our own.

In short, this piece is an embodiment and vindication of philosophical inquiry.