The musical masterpiece at the heart of this exhibition was originally composed by Bach for harpsichord: an aria with thirty variations written between 1741 and 1745. According to Bach’s first biographer, Johann Nikolaus Forkel, the work was commissioned by Count Hermann Carl von Keyserling, the Russian ambassador to Saxony, who employed the young Johann Gottlieb Goldberg to play “delicate, spirited music” at night to ease his insomnia.

Hence the title Insomnia for the presentation at Xavier Hufkens, which strongly emphasizes the ideas of horizontality and verticality, suggesting a choreography that emerges from horizontality into verticality in relation to the paintings. Bach met this request by creating a monumental work, built from modularly linked pieces shaped by mathematical patterns and symmetrical structures. The composition opens with a two-part aria based on a passacaglia’s bass ostinato.

This bass line runs through every variation and returns at the end, forming a cycle of 32 elements: the aria, its recapitulation, and the variations between them. When the aria reappears, it is recognisable yet transformed by everything that precedes it—a circle that reflects the cyclical and spiritual nature of human life. The grounding bass line functions almost like a repeated prayer, constantly renewed, charged with human emotion while pointing toward the eternity of divine perfection. De Keersmaeker’s solo unfolds in direct awareness of this duality in Bach: the human and the divine, the physical and the metaphysical.

This is an adaptation of INTERWEAVING DANCE, MUSIC, MATHS AND VISUAL ARTS, Leonetta Bentivoglio, Silvana Editoriale, 2025.