Pina Bausch

Pina Bausch was a German dancer and choreographer who was a significant contributor to a neo-expressionist dance tradition now known as Tanztheater. 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 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. Bausch was born in Solingen, 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. Bausch was accepted into Kurt Jooss's the Folkwangschule aged 14. After graduation in 1959, Bausch left Germany with a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service to continue her studies at the Juilliard School in New York City in 1960, where her teachers included Antony Tudor, José Limón, Alfredo Corvino, and Paul Taylor. Bausch was very soon performing with Tudor at the Metropolitan Opera 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, Italy, he took Bausch with him. In New York Bausch also performed with the Paul Sanasardo and Donya Feuer 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-Ballett (Folkwang Ballet) as a soloist and assisted Jooss on many of the pieces. In 1968, she choreographed her first piece, Fragmente (Fragments), to music by Béla Bartók. In 1969, she succeeded Jooss as artistic director of the company. In 1973, she moved to Wuppertal to become artistic director of the Wuppertal Opera ballet (Wuppertaler Tanztheater), which later became Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch (Dance Theatre Wuppertal Pina Bausch), run as an independent company. The company has a large repertoire of original pieces, and regularly tours throughout the world from its home base of the Opernhaus Wuppertal. Her best-known works include Café Müller (1978), in which dancers stumble around the stage crashing into tables and chairs; Nelken (1982), which features a stage covered with carnations; Palermo Palermo (1989), which opens with a huge wall falling down; The Rite of Spring (1975), set to Igor Stravinsky's score; Kontakthof (1978), where the performers dance in a ballroom; and Vollmond (2006), which features a giant boulder on the stage. One of the themes in her work is relationships. She had a very specific process in which she went about creating emotions. Improvisation and the memory of own experiences and 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 with their own emotions. Bausch was honored with many awards throughout her career, including the Deutscher Tanzpreis (1995), Europe Theatre Prize (1999), Praemium Imperiale (1999), Goethe Prize (2008), and Kyoto Prize (2009). She also collaborated with film directors, such as Federico Fellini and Pedro Almodóvar, and influenced many others, such as Lars von Trier and Wim Wenders. Bausch died of cancer in 2009, five days after being diagnosed. She was survived by her husband Ronald Kay and her son Salomon Bausch. Her legacy lives on through her company and her works, which continue to be performed around the world. ¹²³⁴⁵