Pina Bausch doesn't quite make it to Beirut

BEIRUT: Pina Bausch, the celebrated German contemporary-dance choreographer and tireless tourer of the world’s theaters, never made it to Beirut. Now she never will. On June 30 this year, having been diagnosed with cancer a mere five days earlier, the doyenne’s life came to a sudden stop. In lieu of an appearance from the lady herself, Metropolis Art Cinema and the Goethe Institute have organized a series of screenings and lectures in her honor. The series was set in motion on Saturday with a talk from Thomas Thorausch, assistant director of the German Dance Archive in Cologne. 

Accompanied by film clips of Bausch in performance and interviews, Thorausch’s talk was a personal tribute to a woman who changed the face of contemporary dance and touched his life through their friendship. 

“How is an archivist to talk about someone who had such a deep influence on their life?” he asked at the beginning of his talk. 

Thorausch invited his audience to take an imaginary train-ride with him, from Cologne to the industrial West German city of Wuppertal. 

In 1973, at the age of 33, Bausch was invited to take over the Ballett der Wuppertaler Bühnen, a dance company that she swiftly re-named “Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch.” Here she remained for the rest of her career, despite the rioting that met her early performances in a town that had a reputation for conservatism. 

The jauntily named Wuppertal became the unlikely nerve-center of Bausch’s revolutionary experiments. Her stark, dramatic works blur the boundary between dance and theater, sometimes giving words to the dancers and using set design as a key component. 

Bausch’s unique style was demonstrated by Thorausch with a clip from her 1982 performance “Nelken” (Carnation). Often considered her archetypal work, “Nelken” is a dance of surreal beauty. A near-naked woman, with an accordian strapped to her chest, wonders through a stage covered with pink carnations. 

“To see a work by Bausch is to forever change the way you look at dance and theater,” said Thorausch. 

The work that originally made Bausch’s name was her version of “The Rite of Spring.” Thorausch showed a clip from rehearsals for the piece, where Bausch took a young dancer through the punishing choreography of the lead role. In performance, the dancers traverse a layer of soil. By the end of Bausch’s tale of superstition and mysogyny, the dancers are spattered with sweat and filth. 

A fasciniating portrait of Bausch emerged from Thorausch’s video clips. A tall, bony woman with scraped-back hair and high cheek-bones, her austere aspect was tempered by luxuriantly pliant limbs (when she danced) or a huge grin (when she spoke). A cigarette permanently dangled from Bausch’s long fingers, often in dire need of an ash-tray. 

The choreographer seems to have simultaneously prized spontaneity and control. Thorausch recounted how she sat in the audience of every performance to ensure every detail was exactly as it should be. 

But in various rehearsal clips, Bausch is shown playing around with her dancers, trying out new ideas in a relaxed, frivolous setting. Bausch came to prize such experimentation as the breeding ground for new ideas. 

“She was the choreographer who asked questions of her dancers,” said Thorausch. 

“But her performances were so much more than the sum of the answers.” 

Bausch’s hunger for something absolutely new meant her dancers were required to dig deep into themselves. 

“Often what is most beautiful is most hidden,” Bausch was quoted as saying. 

Tracking down the beauty that Bausch required wasn’t always, it seems, an easy experience for the dancer. Thorausch recalled one of Bausch’s protegees saying, “Sometimes you feel pretty naked.” 

The influence of Bausch’s experimentation extended even into cinema. In his 2002 film “Talk to Her,” the notorious Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almo-dovar included extracts of “Café Muller,” Bausch’s semi-autobiographical 1987 performance, as an integral part of the film. 

As well as showcasing her unmistakeable style, Almodovar explored similar themes to those that have ricochted through the work of Bausch: alienation, intimacy and communication between the sexes. Her vast impact on subsequent creative minds means that Bausch lives on, even though she will never make it to Beirut. 

 

“A Tribute to Pina Bausch” continues on Monday with a screening of “Café Muller.” For further details, call +961 3 793 065.