Stephanie Gilman
On Seeing Pina Bausch’s Nefes in Wroclaw, Poland
by Stephanie Gilman
I am a New York City-based theater director, incredibly fortunate to have been part of the US Artists Initiative for The World as a Place of Truth festival in Wroclaw, Poland, in June. This international theater festival, part of the Grotowski Year, featured work by Peter Brook, Tadashi Suzuki, Krystian Lupa, Eugenio Barba, Richard Shechner and Pina Bausch.
I’ve seen Bausch’s work since 1995, perhaps ten shows over the years, beginning with Two Cigarettes in the Dark. Her work has had a huge impact on me as an artist: her sense of theatricality; her use of humor and repetition; the way she creates a common language with her audience, usually at the outset, by having dancers cross the stage and gaze at us. All changed the way I see and direct theater. I was also struck by her sense of scale. Her work helped me continue to question the boundaries between theater and dance.
In Wroclaw, I attended a film screening prior to the performance of Nefes, and a few of Pina’s thoughts resonated deeply with me:
Dare to go into the unknown.
Dare to be disliked.
Move in a fog and don’t know where you are going.
Delay decisions as long as possible.
Approach the material with naivety.
I used to think about these ideas a lot. It was so very good to be reminded, and hear them from someone I admired so deeply.
Pina spoke the film’s last words: “I have seen many springs. I hope to see many more…”
To say I am saddened by her death is an understatement. I am devastated, and only feel more urgency to do my work and carry on. I can’t even imagine what her dancers are experiencing. They did go on with their final performance of Nefes on June 30, even after hearing of her death.
Our group had attended the performance on June 29, and I’d heard she was in the hospital, and that a rare open conversation with her might be canceled. But I did not know how sick she was.
Nefes was incredible: luscious, sexy, dense, hot, beautiful. Bausch’s command of formal craft and theatrical pacing were, as always, evident. Nefes is, loosely, about Istanbul. (Bausch’s works are often inspired by a city). In Nefes, the romantic alternates with the dream-like, and the workaday. But, whereas many of Bausch’s pieces contain chilling and violent images, Nefes is especially joyful. It made me smile, laugh out loud and jump out of my seat several times. Beautiful women gaze at the audience while towel clad men cross the stage. Billows of soap cause giddy delight on stage and off. A man jumps into a giant pool of water nestled in the stage, and then performs an unbelievable solo in a huge shower of water shooting down onto the stage.
Pina Bausch was a choreographer, but she understood theater. She knew how to tell a story with an image, to create that oh-so-powerful mash up of text, movement and music so many of us strive for in our work. She knew how to use repetition to startling effect. She knew how to surprise us, make us laugh and move us. About her dancers, she said, “I look for something else.” She continued, “The possibility of making them feel what each gesture means internally. Everything must come from the heart, must be lived.” If that isn’t acting, I don’t know what is!
After the performance of Nefes, there was a party at the festival club. The music: Michael Jackson. The participants: people from the US, Poland, Turkey, England, Greece, Hungary, Brazil, Germany. It was hot. Smoky. A far-flung community of people who wanted to dance together. Beautiful post-Nefes Pina Bausch-inspired dancing. I will never forget this night, and continue to mourn the loss of one of our greatest artists.
Stephanie Gilman is an independent director based in New York City. She has directed and taught all over the Northeastern US. She was the co-founder and co-artistic director of Collision Theory, an award winning ensemble company that created and produced interdisciplinary, physical theater. Stephanie continues to develop and teach the movement work of the late Beatrice Lees, as a training system as well as to create original, movement-based performance. Stephanie is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect, a Drama League Directing Fellow and a proud member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.
More on Poland's The World as a Place of Truth festival:
In Praise of a Polish Theater Master
by Sally McGrane, The New York Times, July 6, 2009
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