TS Eliot and the challenge of the great American choreographer: It is massive, it is difficult, it is abstract!

As her masterpiece "The Four Quartets" is teaching London, choreographer Pam Tanowitz reveals why she still finds it difficult to decode this poem. The article by journalist Lyndsey Winship, published in the Guardian newspaper, is presented in full by Telegrafi below.

Her choreography has been evaluated by the "New York Times" as one of the best dances that have been done in the world. However, her creations have never appeared outside of the US until now. Next month, Pam Tanowitz's Four Quartets will have its British premiere at London's Barbican Theatre.

It is the first time TS Eliot's copyright heirs have given permission for his last major work to be used by a dance troupe. Tanowitz knew the lines a decade before Gideon Lester, artistic director at New York's Bard College, engaged him to choreograph the 75th anniversary of the first publication of the Four Quartets (which was last summer ).

The realization has taken two years, but Tanowitz has not yet unraveled all the secrets of the poem.

"It's massive, it's difficult, it's abstract. I still don't understand the poem," she says. “I don't think you'll ever understand. It's something you pick up in different spaces, age, or whatever happens in your life, and you get different things out of it."

The four parts, published as a whole in 1943, are a meditation on time, in rural England, Eliot's Anglican faith and with numerous references to music, rhythm and dance. But rather than making movements to reflect specific words in the text, Tanowitz wanted to treat the text as a piece of music. A condition imposed by Eliot's legacy was that the poem should not be tampered with ("Which I didn't like at first," says Tanowitz), so the text is read entirely by American actress Kathleen Chalfant, with a soundtrack by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho.

Tanowitz's research for this piece included a pilgrimage to the four countries that inspired the poem. First to the rock formation in Massachusetts (poem "Dry Salvages"), then traveling to England to visit the Cotswolds mansion (poem "Burnt Norton"), the Somerset countryside (poem "East Coker") and the Cambridgeshire region (poem "Little Gidding" )

"I've never been to the English countryside, so how could I dance to that?" she says, adding that it was a revelation for her to see the lines of the poem materialized in real life. "It's a swimming pool with no water in it, it's a rose garden. Things I thought were abstract, are real. We read the poem and in each place we try to know how Eliot would enter the garden, whether he took the right or the left hand.

The play ultimately does not look like an English garden, thanks to the scenography based on the paintings of the American artist, Brice Marden. Its bold, vividly colored concept is the perfect backdrop to Tanowitz's rhythmic, highly detailed dance, with connections to classical ballet and choreographer Merce Cunningham (Tanowitz was taught by Cunningham's great ballerina, Viola Farber). Her compositional ability has been praised by American critics; Alastair Macaulay called the "Four Quartets", "the greatest dance theater creation of this century".

Tanowitz may go to the UK as a fully formed artist, but the mastery of her craft has been constantly evolving for 25 years. She is like an inadvertent circuit breaker in an art world jumping on the next big thing where promising young artists are catapulted into successful careers.

"I look very good for 49 years old, but I was never a young talent," she says. "I always had a job, a family, I also have a daughter. I didn't feel much like touring or business. I only tried to dance well. For the first 10 or 15 years, I was very underrated in New York. Very few people came to my shows. I was very disappointed at the time, but it was actually the best thing for me as an artist because it really allowed me to grow without worrying about reviews or ticket sales."

The reviews are getting better and better for him, especially for Bach's "Four Quartets" and "Goldberg Variations". Having been a New York secret for so long, it's time for Tanowitz's choreography to reach a larger audience.

"It's really great that people want to look at my work," she says. "I'm ready". /Telegraph/