Written to Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians”, “Rain” is one of the most brilliant Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker productions and one of the key moments in her carrier. In 2001, with this uncommonly vital piece, she returns to her two great loves: “pure dance” and minimalist Steve Reich music. Supported by a haunting musical pulsation, ten dancers occupy for more than an hour in a profusion of danced virtuoso phrases, a stage enclosed by a curtain of thin ropes. Mathematised forms, tireless repetition, geometric use of space, art of permanent variation, in a word, everything that has gradually become the choreographer’s signature is tremendously amplified here. With “Rain” De Keersmaeker deals with her dancers as a merging community where every individual plays a singular role. Seven women and three men surrender to an irrepressible collective energy that connects them. A bubbling network sharing breath, speed and that strange friendship that can only stem from exhaustion.