Preview: Focus On Rosas, Sadler's Wells, London

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Kelly Rissman

US News Reporter

The starting point of a dance is the most crucial point. But for Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, that was the easy part. Always searching for inspiration in music, De Keersmaeker had to look no further than to the classical composer George Benjamin, who, having seen her previous work, agreed to compose the mid-section of the Belgian choreographer's latest piece, D'un Soir Un Jour. "From there we went on to look for other composers that have an affinity with Benjamin," she says. "We found Debussy and Stravinsky - music that is very much linked to dance."

For De Keersmaeker, her focus is very much the music, on which she centres the choreography. The almost symbiotic relationship between music and dance means that, without one, the other is wasted. "When I choreograph, I'd like people to see the music and listen to the dance," she says. "I wish for the love I have for music to come through in a very evident way to the audience."

This autumn, Sadler's Wells sees the return of De Keersmaeker's contemporary dance company Rosas. As part of the ongoing dance festival, Dance Umbrella, Rosas has been asked to perform its British debut of D'un Soir Un Jour, as well as De Keersmaeker's Repertory Evening - a look at some of her masterworks from the 1980s and 1990s.

De Keersmaeker believes that the pieces work so well together because they "have different ways of giving an image of what has been a crucial aspect in the work of Rosas in the past 20 years - the relationship between music and dance. They are the first opportunity for the audience to see the crucial points in the trajectory that Rosas has made over the years".

Repertory Evening and D'un Soir Un Jour seem to have been founded in a language of their own - that of De Keersmaeker's love of the unique rapport between live music and dance.

Focus on Rosas, tomorrow to 2 November; as part of Dance Umbrella 2006; 16 & 17 October - 'D'un Soir Un Jour'; 19 & 20 October - Repertory Evening; Sadler's Wells (0870 737 7737)