Philippine "Pina" Bausch
(27 July 1940 – 30 June 2009) was a German dancer and
choreographer
Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which motion or form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who cr ...
who was a significant contributor to a
neo-expressionist dance tradition now known as . Bausch's approach was noted for a stylized blend of dance movement, prominent
sound design, and involved stage sets, as well as for engaging the dancers under her to help in the development of a piece, and her work had an influence on
modern dance
Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert or theatrical dance which included dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th ...
from the 1970s forward.
Her work, regarded as a continuation of the European and American
expressionist movements, incorporated many expressly dramatic elements and often explored themes connected to
trauma, particularly trauma arising out of relationships. She created the company Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, which performs internationally.
Early life
Bausch was born in
Solingen
Solingen (; li, Solich) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located some 25 km east of Düsseldorf along the northern edge of the region called Bergisches Land, south of the Ruhr area, and, with a 2009 population of 161,3 ...
, the daughter of August and Anita Bausch, who owned a restaurant with guest rooms which is where she was born. The restaurant provided Pina with a venue to start performing at a very young age. She would perform for all of the guests in the hotel and occasionally go into their rooms and dance while they were trying to read the newspaper. It was then that her parents saw her potential.
Career
Bausch was accepted into
Kurt Jooss's the
Folkwangschule
The Folkwang University of the Arts is a university for music, theater, dance, design, and academic studies, located in four German cities of North Rhine-Westphalia. Since 1927, its traditional main location has been in the former Werden Abbey in E ...
at age of 14.
After graduation in 1959, Bausch left Germany with a scholarship from the
German Academic Exchange Service
The German Academic Exchange Service, or DAAD (german: Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst), was founded in 1925 and is the largest German support organisation in the field of international academic co-operation.
Organisation
''DAAD'' is a ...
to continue her studies at the
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most ...
in New York City in 1960, where her teachers included
Antony Tudor,
José Limón
José Arcadio Limón (January 12, 1908 – December 2, 1972) was a dancer and choreographer from Mexico and who developed what is now known as 'Limón technique'. In the 1940s, he founded the José Limón Dance Company (now the Limón Dan ...
,
Alfredo Corvino, and
Paul Taylor. Bausch was soon performing with Tudor at the
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is operat ...
Ballet Company, and with Paul Taylor at
New American Ballet. When, in 1960, Taylor was invited to premiere a new work named ''Tablet'' in
Spoleto
Spoleto (, also , , ; la, Spoletum) is an ancient city in the Italian province of Perugia in east-central Umbria on a foothill of the Apennines. It is S. of Trevi, N. of Terni, SE of Perugia; SE of Florence; and N of Rome.
History
Sp ...
, Italy, he took Bausch with him. In New York Bausch also performed with the
Paul Sanasardo and
Donya Feuer
Donya Feuer (31 October 1934 – 6 November 2011) was an American dancer, choreographer and a pioneer of modern dance. She was also a theater director and filmmaker, and a long-time collaborator with director Ingmar Bergman.
Life and career
Feu ...
Dance Company and collaborated on two pieces with them in 1961. It was in New York City that Pina stated, "New York is like a jungle but at the same time it gives you a feeling of total freedom. In these two years, I have found myself."
In 1962, Bausch joined Jooss' new (Folkwang Ballet) as a soloist and assisted Jooss on many of the pieces. In 1968, she choreographed her first piece, (Fragments), to music by
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hun ...
. In 1969, she succeeded Jooss as artistic director of the company.
Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch
In 1973, Bausch started as artistic director of the
Wuppertal Opera ballet, as the , run as an independent company.
Josephine Ann Endicott
Josephine Ann Endicott (born in 1951, in Sydney, Australia) is an Australian dancer and former employee of the ''Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch'' dance ensemble.
Biography
Her parents were divorced when she was growing up with two older male ...
was an Australian solo dancer before joining the Tanztheater. The company has a large repertoire of original pieces, and regularly tours throughout the world from its home base of the
Opernhaus Wuppertal
Opernhaus Wuppertal (Wuppertal Opera House) is a German theatre in Wuppertal, North Rhine-Westphalia. It houses mostly performances of operas, but also plays, run by the municipal Wuppertaler Bühnen. The house is also the venue for dance per ...
. It was renamed later: Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch.
Her best-known dance-theatre works include the melancholic ''
Café Müller'' (1985), in which dancers stumble around the stage crashing into tables and chairs. Bausch had most of the dancers perform this piece with their eyes closed. The thrilling (''
The Rite of Spring
''The Rite of Spring''. Full name: ''The Rite of Spring: Pictures from Pagan Russia in Two Parts'' (french: Le Sacre du printemps: tableaux de la Russie païenne en deux parties) (french: Le Sacre du printemps, link=no) is a ballet and orchestral ...
'') (1975) required the stage to be completely covered with soil. She stated: "It is almost unimportant whether a work finds an understanding audience. One has to do it because one believes that it is the right thing to do. We are not only here to please, we cannot help challenging the spectator."
One of the themes in her work was relationships. She had a very specific process in which she went about creating emotions. "Improvisation and the memory of
he dancer'sown experiences ... she asks questions—about parents, childhood, feelings in specific situations, the use of objects, dislikes, injuries, aspirations. From the answers develop gestures, sentences, dialogues, little scenes." The dancer is free to choose any expressive mode, whether it is verbal or physical when answering these questions. It is with this freedom that the dancer feels secure in going deep within themselves. When talking about her process she stated, "There is no book. There is no set. There is no music. There is only life and us. It's absolutely frightening to do a work when you have nothing to hold on to." She stated, "In the end, it's composition. What you do with things. There's nothing there to start with. There are only answers: sentences, little scenes someone's shown you. It's all separate to start with. Then at a certain point I'll take something which I think is right and join it to something else. This with that, that with something else. One thing with various other things. And by the time I've found the next thing is right, then the little thing I had is already a lot bigger."
Male-female interaction is a theme found throughout her work, which has been an inspiration for—and reached a wider audience through—the movie ''
Talk to Her'', directed by
Pedro Almodóvar
Pedro Almodóvar Caballero (; (often known simply as Almodóvar) born 25 September 1949) is a Spanish filmmaker. His films are marked by melodrama, irreverent humour, bold colour, glossy décor, quotations from popular culture, and complex narra ...
. Her pieces are constructed of short units of dialogue and action, often of a surreal nature. Repetition is an important structuring device. She stated: "''Repetition is not repetition,'' ... The same action makes you feel something completely different by the end." Her large multi-media productions often involve elaborate sets and eclectic music. In , half of the stage is taken up by a giant, rocky hill, and the score includes everything from Portuguese music to
k.d. lang.
In 1983, she played the role of La Principessa Lherimia in
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini (; 20 January 1920 – 31 October 1993) was an Italian film director and screenwriter known for his distinctive style, which blends fantasy and baroque images with earthiness. He is recognized as one of the greatest and most ...
's film ''
And the Ship Sails On''. The Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch made its American debut in Los Angeles as the opening performance of the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival.
In 2009, Bausch started to collaborate with film director
Wim Wenders
Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders (; born 14 August 1945) is a German filmmaker, playwright, author, and photographer. He is a major figure in New German Cinema. Among many honors, he has received three nominations for the Academy Award for Best Doc ...
on a 3D documentary,
''Pina''. The film premiered at the
Berlin Film Festival
The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...
in 2011.
Personal life
Bausch was married to Dutch-born
Rolf Borzik, a set and costume designer who died of leukaemia in 1980. Later that year, she met Ronald Kay, and in 1981 they had a son, Rolf Salomon Bausch.
Awards and honours
Among the honours awarded to Bausch are the UK's
Laurence Olivier Award
The Laurence Olivier Awards, or simply the Olivier Awards, are presented annually by the Society of London Theatre to recognise excellence in professional theatre in London at an annual ceremony in the capital. The awards were originally known a ...
and Japan's
Kyoto Prize. She was awarded the
Deutscher Tanzpreis in 1995. In 1999, she was the recipient of the
Europe Theatre Prize. In 2008, the city of
Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian dialects, Hessian: , "Franks, Frank ford (crossing), ford on the Main (river), Main"), is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as o ...
awarded her its prestigious
Goethe Prize. She was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, ...
in 2009.
Works by Bausch were staged in June and July 2012 as a highlight of the Cultural Olympiad preceding the
Olympic Games 2012 in London. The works were created when Bausch was invited to visit and stay in 10 global locations – in India, Brazil, Palermo, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Budapest, Istanbul, Santiago, Rome, and Japan – between 1986 and 2009. Seven of the works have not been seen in the UK.
Europe Theatre Prize
In 1999, she was awarded the VII
Europe Theatre Prize, with the following motivation:
Since she took over the direction of the Wuppertal Tanztheater 25 years ago, Pina Bausch has used her training and experience as a soloist in classical ballet to literally invent a new genre, a combination of theatre, dance, music, and visual arts in which score and improvisation come together, very close to the dream of a total theatre that juxtaposes the individual talents of an extraordinary ensemble with a precise concept of time and space. The results are deconstructions of Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the ...
or Bartok, reconstructions of Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
or Brecht
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...
, or productions based on a theme - an anniversary, a dance, a farewell, a city - conceived as children's games or parlour games and orchestrated like review acts in order to rummage in the everyday life of the dancers, who pretend to have stopped dancing, subjected to public questioning and left to the flow of free associations, citing over and over but without ruling out psychoanalytical stripteases.
In these group productions, the great teacher Pina Bausch, who never forgets that she was once the blind princess in a visionary film by Fellini, forces her actors to assume a role and a type of ceremonial, where extremely varied personal experiences and backgrounds combine with the precise geometry of the rhythmic movements. Although the motifs change, from one animal or flower to another, each show extends into the next to become part of a hypothetical single continuum, in other words the rite of a show, the story of the community that performs it with the joy of disguise and the solitude of cohabitation. However, behind the often heartbreaking splendour of the visual tableaux, the seductive feline and ineluctable manner in which the troupe advances in single file, and the pattern of the movements, regular but cleverly out of tune, through this lifelong self-portrayal the great artist offers all her spectators an ironic and desperate mirror in which to reflect their existential condition.
Death
Bausch died on 30 June 2009 in
Wuppertal
Wuppertal (; "'' Wupper Dale''") is, with a population of approximately 355,000, the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the 17th-largest city of Germany. It was founded in 1929 by the merger of the cities and to ...
,
North Rhine Westphalia, Germany at the age of 68 of an unstated form of cancer attributable to smoking, five days after diagnosis
and two days before shooting was scheduled to begin for the long-planned
Wim Wenders
Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders (; born 14 August 1945) is a German filmmaker, playwright, author, and photographer. He is a major figure in New German Cinema. Among many honors, he has received three nominations for the Academy Award for Best Doc ...
documentary. She is survived by her son Salomon.
Tributes
The same year, choreographer and experimental theatre-maker
Dimitris Papaioannou
Dimitris Papaioannou ( el, Δημήτρης Παπαϊωάννου; born 21 June 1964) is a Greek experimental theater stage director, choreographer and visual artist who drew media attention and acclaim with his creative direction of the O ...
created a piece called ''Nowhere'' to inaugurate the renovated Main Stage of the
Greek National Theatre
The National Theatre of Greece () is based in Athens, Greece.
History
The first permanent theatre in modern Greece had been the Boukoura Theatre from 1840, but it had difficulty in managing its operation and stood empty for long periods of t ...
in Athens. The show's central and most prolific scene was dedicated to the memory of Pina Bausch and involved performers linking arms and stripping naked a man and woman.
In 2010 the dance company
Les Ballets C de la B
Alain Platel (born 9 April 1956) is a Belgian choreographer and director. In 1984, he founded les ballets C de la B, which has been called 'one of the world's most influential dance theatre companies'. Platel came to prominence alongside choreog ...
performed ''Out of Context – for Pina'', which was dedicated to Bausch's memory. The show was directed and conceived by the company's founder
Alain Platel
Alain Platel (born 9 April 1956) is a Belgian choreographer and director. In 1984, he founded les ballets C de la B, which has been called 'one of the world's most influential dance theatre companies'. Platel came to prominence alongside choreogr ...
, for whom Bausch was a friend and mentor.
In 2010 the choreographer
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (born 1976) is a Belgian dancer and choreographer and director. He has made over 50 choreographic pieces and received two Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production, three Ballet Tanz awards for best choreographe ...
and dancer
Shantala Shivalingappa
Shantala Shivalingappa is an Indian Kuchipudi dancer. Shivalingappa, a "child of the east and west", was born in Madras, India, and raised in Paris. She attended the international Jeannine Manuel School in Paris (then École Active Bilingue Jea ...
premiered their work 'Play', which was dedicated to Pina Bausch's memory. Bausch was the main impetus for the piece as she had brought Cherkaoui and Shivalingappa to collaborate in 2008 to perform for the final edition of her festival.
Wenders' documentary, ''
Pina'', was released in late 2011 in the United States, and is dedicated to her memory.
Influence on other artists
Bausch's style has influenced performers such as
David Bowie
David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...
, who designed part of his 1987
Glass Spider Tour with Bausch in mind. For the tour, Bowie "wanted to bridge together some kind of symbolist theatre and modern dance" and used Bausch's early work as a guideline.
Florence + The Machine's vocalist was also influenced by Bausch's work. She became very fond of Bausch's work and explained that her "work expresses the human condition in a way that I’ve never seen before—she’d do amazing pieces where it would just be a huge pile of rose petals that someone would ski down, or a dance that would be two people playing tag for two hours. It was incredibly visceral and emotional, and very experimental. So dancing for me is just a very calm place to be—you’re just with your body."
Influence on popular culture
Promotional trailers for the third season of ''
American Horror Story: Coven'' included a clip for the episode "Detention" and were likely influenced by Bausch's work . Stills from the performance and the episode show a group of women seemingly defying gravity as they cling to the walls high above the ground, toes pointed down and hands pressed above them. The photo of Bausch's performance was previously released on Reddit as well as Twitter with the implication that it was from a Russian mental institution, but its source was quickly identified.
Works
The following table shows works since 1973. Several of Pina Bausch's works were announced as because she chose a title late in the development of a work. The typical subtitle from 1978 was (A piece by Pina Bausch). The translations are given as on the website of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. Some of the German titles are ambiguous. "Kontakthof" is composed of
Kontakt ("contact") and
Hof ("court, courtyard"), resulting in "courtyard of contact," which is also a technical term for an area in some brothels where the first contact with prostitutes is possible. "Ich bring dich um die Ecke," literally "I'll take you around the corner," can mean "I'll accompany you around the corner" but also colloquially "I'll kill you." "Ahnen" can mean "ancestors," but also (as a verb) "to foresee", "bode", "suspect."
The details about the music for the works until 1986 follow a book by
Raimund Hoghe who was
dramaturge
A dramaturge or dramaturg is a literary adviser or editor in a theatre, opera, or film company who researches, selects, adapts, edits, and interprets scripts, libretti, texts, and printed programmes (or helps others with these tasks), consults auth ...
in Wuppertal.
Filmography
* 1980 ''Die Generalprobe''. Documentary. Dir.:
Werner Schroeter
* 1983 ''What Are Pina Bausch and Her Dancers Doing in Wuppertal?''. Documentary. Dir.: Klaus Wildenhahn
* 1983 ''Plaisir du théâtre''. TV mini-series documentary. Dir.: Georges Bensoussan
* 1983 ''
And the Ship Sails On''. Drama. Dir.:
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini (; 20 January 1920 – 31 October 1993) was an Italian film director and screenwriter known for his distinctive style, which blends fantasy and baroque images with earthiness. He is recognized as one of the greatest and most ...
* 1983 ''Un jour Pina m'a demandé''. TV documentary. Dir.:
Chantal Akerman
* 1990 ''
The Complaint of an Empress''. Dir.: Pina Bausch
* 1990 ''3res 14torze 16tze''. TV series. Episode dated 26 January 1990. Dir.: Cristina Ferrer
* 1998 ''Lissabon Wuppertal Lisboa''. TV documentary. Dir.:
Fernando Lopes
* 2002 ''
Talk to Her''. Drama. Dir.:
Pedro Almodóvar
Pedro Almodóvar Caballero (; (often known simply as Almodóvar) born 25 September 1949) is a Spanish filmmaker. His films are marked by melodrama, irreverent humour, bold colour, glossy décor, quotations from popular culture, and complex narra ...
* 2002 ''Pina Bausch – A Portrait by Peter Lindbergh based on 'Der Fensterputzer'.'' TV short. Dir.:
Peter Lindbergh
Peter Lindbergh (born Peter Brodbeck; 23 November 1944 – 3 September 2019) was a German fashion photographer and film director.
He had studied arts in Berlin and Krefeld, and exhibited his works before graduation. In 1971, he turned to phot ...
* 2004 ''La mandrágora. TV series''. Dir.: Miguel Sarmiento
* 2006 ''Pina Bausch. TV documentary''. Dir.: Anne Linsel
* 2010 ''Dancing Dreams. Documentary''. Dir.: Rainer Hoffmann, Anne Linsel
* 2011 ''
Pina – Dance Dance Otherwise We Are Lost''. Documentary. Dir.:
Wim Wenders
Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders (; born 14 August 1945) is a German filmmaker, playwright, author, and photographer. He is a major figure in New German Cinema. Among many honors, he has received three nominations for the Academy Award for Best Doc ...
* 2011 ''Understanding Pina: The Legacy of Pina Bausch.'' Documentary. Dir.: Kathy Sullivan and Howard Silver
Gallery
Notes
References
Bibliography
;Books:
* Gabriele Klein: Pina Bausch’s Dance Theater. Company, Artistic Practices and Reception. transcript, Bielefeld 2020, .
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;Newspapers:
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;Online sources:
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External links
Pina Bausch FoundationTanztheater Wuppertal Pina BauschArchival footage of Lutz Forster performing in Pina Bausch's ''For the Children of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow '' in 2013 at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival.Archival footage of a complete performance ( 1989) of Pina Bausch's ''Palermo Palermo''
;Tributes:
''The Guardian''''The Guardian''''The Guardian''''l'Humanité''
;Photography:
Dance photo, Mechthild Großmann by Peter Lind 1986
Dance photo, Helena Pikon by Peter Lind 1986Dance photo, Jan Minarik & Dominique Mercy by Peter Lind 1986
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bausch, Pina
1940 births
2009 deaths
Deaths from lung cancer in Germany
German female dancers
German women choreographers
Juilliard School alumni
Kyoto laureates in Arts and Philosophy
Modern dancers
People from Solingen
People from Wuppertal
Recipients of the Praemium Imperiale
Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)
Knights Commander of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
2012 Cultural Olympiad
Folkwang University of the Arts alumni