Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Alain Franco

On the occasion of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Steven Fillet's exhibition, As you wish, at St-Georges and Bist du bei mir online — De Keersmaeker and musician Alain Franco also present live performances, Insomnia at the gallery on several occasions.

The Goldberg Variations were 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.

The context inspired the the title Insomnia for the performances with De Keersmaeker and Franco at the gallery, which strongly emphasises the ideas of horizontality and verticality, suggesting a choreography that emerges from horizontal to vertical in relation to the paintings.