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Pina Bausch in Café Müller. Photo: J. Paulo Pimenta |
"It is not that I wanted to confront people. The misunderstanding is not that I love violence, it was quite the opposite. I was terrified of violence, but I wanted to understand the person doing the violence. That was the exploration." —Pina Bausch
This fall, when Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch returns to BAM for its 15th engagement from September 14 to 24, it comes full circle with the works Café Müller (1978) and The Rite of Spring (1975), both performed in the company’s inaugural run at BAM in 1984. The look and feel of Bausch’s repertory over the decades has, for the large part, shifted from dark and literally earthbound to light and air- and water-suffused. Ask longtime viewers which they prefer and you’ll get resounding votes for each. Taken together, they form a body of work which, while cut short by Bausch’s sudden death in 2009, is one of our era’s most influential and uncompromising artistic outputs.
While contemporary theater artists may not consciously or overtly quote Pina, she has emerged as one of the most influential theater artists working over the past half-century. Is a dance performance interrupted by a random bit of spoken text or a quotidian gesture? Are seemingly unrelated vignettes mixed together in a performance? Do costumes reinforce or subvert gender stereotypes? Does a jukebox soundtrack shift moods and accumulate to provide a changing and varied emotional landscape? These are all threads that Pina repeatedly wove into her astonishing repertory, and which have become common practices.
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Two Cigarettes in the Dark. Photo courtesy of BAM Hamm Archives |
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Nelken. Photo: Ulli Weiss, copyright Pina Bausch Foundation. |
Floral imagery pops up throughout Bausch’s work. Nelken (Carnations; 1982) features a field of the flowers which, over the course of the evening, becomes trampled and plucked by the manic cast, seemingly possessed by a late Weimar-era fever. Der Fensterputzer (The Window Washer; 1997) focuses on Hong Kong and its many glass towers and window washers. It includes a large mound of red bauhinia blossoms, on which people ski or lounge, and around which dancers ride bikes. In Two Cigarettes in the Dark (1985), verdant tropical plants are sealed within a windowed terrarium—a white, gallery-like space, but with a view of an artificial landscape. Eventually a man finds his way into the terrarium, standing awkwardly in his briefs among the plants and looking like an exhibit at a natural history museum.
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The Rite of Spring. Photo: Ulli Weiss |
A number of pieces were largely created on location-based research, incorporating native music and customs: Palermo Palermo; Danzón (Cuba; 1995); Der Fensterputzer; Masurca Fogo (Portugal; 1998); Nefés (Turkey; 2003); Bamboo Blues (India; 2007), and “…como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si…” (Chile; 2009). The sets become notably lighter in hue and more airy. Water returns in Nefés—a subterranean dribble pools centerstage, first forming a puddle, then a pond. In Vollmond (2006), a stream bisects the stage, presided over by a huge rock. Dancers leap off the boulder, “swim” in the water, and sweep it overhead in joyous arcs. In Danzón, projections of goldfish fill the stage, and in a particularly poignant passage, Bausch herself performed an extended solo, unfurling her arms and carving eloquent spirals, her eyes closed in ecstasy or thought.
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Der Fensterputzer, 1997. Photo: Dan Rest |
September’s engagement is a chance to catch, or revisit, Bausch’s early work. Don’t miss it.
Susan Yung is senior editorial manager at BAM.
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