“The last thing I’m interested in is how people move, I’m interested in what moves them.” Pina Bausch is a separate universe in the theater world. She did not strive to be in the flow, on the wave, did not read the news. “Diva” and other epithets that are awarded to individuals of this level did not suit her at all. Pina is the flow of life that cannot be stopped and fixed. It remains to follow it, to observe, to feel.
Outwardly – restrained, always in loose clothes of dark colors and men’s shoes, with an absolutely “naked” face. No makeup, no sexual provocation, no flirting. Even shy. On the one hand, asceticism, on the other hand, an incredible passion for life, work, people.
In her play “Waltzes” there was a phrase: “A little more wine, a cigarette, but not home,” – it seems that this is about Pina herself, who continuously smoked during rehearsals and drank weak coffee in liters. Never screamed. But her heroines screamed and wore heels and bright dresses. “My performances don’t grow from start to finish. They grow from the inside out,” Bausch said.
The path to recognition took many years – the audience slammed the doors, defiantly leaving the hall, Pina received threatening calls demanding the cancellation of performances, critics called what was happening “a ballet orgy in Wuppertal”. Later, in 1982, in the play “Carnations”, the artist will shout from the stage as if into the past: “Well, what do you want? Pirouette? Gran want? Yes please!” But before that, it was necessary to live.
Parents who kept a beer restaurant in the provincial Solingen noticed that their girl “moves like a snake” and sent her to a local ballet school. Pina was five years old, 1945. Pretty soon she became the best student of the founder of the “dance theater” Kurt Joss, a student of the founder of the German expressive-plastic dance Rudolf von Laban. Then there were three years in America, where Pina studied with Anthony Tudor, who invented psychological ballet, and dances in the legendary New American Ballet and the Metropolitan Opera. But Krut Yoss called the student home to make the Folkwang Ballet a soloist, and she returned.
At the age of 33, Pina Bausch headed the ballet troupe of the Wuppertal Opera and Ballet Theatre, immediately renaming it the dance theater. Deadly boring Wuppertal became the place where all the main performances of Pina Bausch were born – she will never leave this city. A place, but not a source of inspiration. Because Pina didn’t care where to be “not here”. Nevertheless, she signed a contract with the theater for a year, and so all 35 years of selfless work.
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The older Pina got, the more amazing her productions turned out. The black and white aesthetics of good and evil is replaced by a colorful world of halftones, nuances and complexities of life. In Bausch’s early feminist performances, women are victims of male cruelty; in the latest, the war of the sexes is over, banners are thrown to the ground, men meekly follow the women, afraid to lose touch, to open their arms. However, extremes, passion and strength still strike like lightning in the hypnotic space of her performances.
They had everything but death. This motive seems to be missing. Did she think about her, was she afraid? In 2009, she was going on tour, but suddenly for everyone she was gone. Pina died of lung cancer. They say that she learned about the terrible disease in just a few months.
Her dates:
- 1940: born in the provincial German city of Solingen.
- 1954: entered the famous Folkwangschule in Essen, where she studied with the leading exponent of German expressionism, choreographer Kurt Joss.
- 1958: Studying at the Juilliard School in America.
- 1962: Return to Essen as a soloist with the Folkwang Ballet at the invitation of Joss.
- 1968: “Fragment” to the music of B. Bartok – the first work as a choreographer.
- 1973: appointment as chief choreographer of the Wuppertal Ballet.
- 1975: “Orpheus and Eurydice” by K. V. Gluck is a dance-opera, a genre invented by Pina, in which two performers correspond to each character – opera and ballet.
- 1975: The Rite of Spring to Stravinsky’s music, which later became a cult dance piece.
- 1976: “The Seven Deadly Sins” by K. Weil – in it the dancers spoke for the first time.
- 1978: Signature performances “Kontakthof” and “Café Müller”. The latter is based on Pina’s personal childhood memories and the stories of her actors.
- 1982: the play “Carnations” to the music of F. Schubert, J. Gershwin, F. Lehar, which also became a legend.
- 1997: “The Window Cleaner” is the first performance in a series of travel experiences around the world’s cities. In this case, Hong Kong.
- 2009: died in Wuppertal from lung cancer.
Keys to Understanding
Theater of the Unconscious
Pina worked for people – those on stage and those in the audience. Communication was the most important part of her work. Her performances are for those who are looking for in art not a plot or everyday life, but a reflection of the very essence of life – something that cannot be explained, touched, retelled. The “vocabulary” of her performances is not so rich, she did not philosophize and did not excel, but she was deep. Spectators drowned in Pina, its actors drowned – to escape. “Dance, dance, otherwise we are lost,” she once said.
It seems that she influenced everyone, she had a lot of followers, imitators and admirers. Director Vin Wenders, having seen her “Cafe Muller” for the first time, sobbed like a child. They became friends and later Wenders made the extraordinary film Pina: Dance of Passion in 3D. He began work on it when Pina was still alive, and finished after her death, as if leaving in space the pulsating ellipsis of her talent.
Personal Actors
Her artists not only danced, but also spoke from the stage. They joked, shouted at the audience, moaned, and talked nonsense. And dressed like ordinary people. But Pina was not enough. She created a new type of individual dancer. “There should be personalities on the stage, not dancers. I wanted them to look like people from the street who are dancing,” said Pina. Therefore, everything was real: mud from peat with water, and live mice, crocodiles on the stage, and emotions. Was it difficult for the artists to walk along the line stretched between the private and the public? Judging by the words of one of them, yes: “Eternal Pinin questions! I can’t hear them anymore. Playing with feelings is like playing with fire.” But it was worth it – she taught them to dance like they didn’t know what they were going to do the next minute. The feeling of spontaneity of what was happening caused both fear and awe in the audience.