Hoketus by Louis Andriessen: this musical hapax, unlike anything else in the history of music, caught the attention of Thierry De Mey and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker when it was first performed in the late 1970s. The work is an important source of inspiration for Rosas danst Rosas. It retains the American minimalist sense of gradual, rudimentary processes that are transparent to the audience, but distances itself from the contemplative Californian aesthetic. Hoketus exudes rebellious energy and a Stravinsky-esque taste for dissonance. The beautiful statement by Andriessen in the foreword to his piece Workers Union, written one year earlier, is still particularly relevant here: “Only in the case of every player playing with such an intention that their part is an essential one, the work will succeed; just as in the political work.”
The process is both simple and diabolically virtuosic: two separate instrumental groups (positioned on the left and right sides of the stage) fire chords at each other at full speed, like ping-pong balls. The two groups do not play a single note simultaneously. The listener's brain reconstructs rhythmic patterns.
Today, it is revisited in a version performed by the advanced master students from the GAME Ensemble (KASK, School of Arts, Ghent), under the mentorship of Ictus.
