Samantha van Wissen

La Valse is dance a film by Thierry De Mey based on the choreography created on Maurice Ravel’s La Valse as the final part of ZOO’s performance Accords. Created as part of the triptych Equi Voci, the film La Valse exists in versions for one or three screens.

Thierry De Mey filmed Rosas danst Rosas in the former technical school of architect Henry Van de Velde in Leuven. The film version is much shorter than the show itself. In his film Thierry De Mey opts for a heavily ‘inter-cut’ version in which, apart from the cast of four dancers from 1995 and 1996, he also has all the other performers from the long history of the show dance along. He makes maximum use of the geometrical and spatial qualities of the Van de Veldes building. Incidentally, the building was thoroughly renovated straight after the film was made, making it one of the last testimonials to the original architecture. The film was shown on all of the major European television channels and also had a cinema career in the ‘art house circuit’.