Legends, then and now: Graham and Bausch

What becomes a legend most...when she's gone?

For Janet Eilber, artistic director of the Martha Graham Dance Company, what becomes her legendary mentor now is a mix of classic repertory works and new commissions designed to take a fresh approach to Graham themes. In seasons past, these themes have explored "Political Dance" and psychological "Inner Landscapes." For its 2013 program at The Joyce Theater (February 20-March 3), the company will offer "Myth & Transformation." This collection will include Phaedra--unseen for a decade--and other Graham works inspired by Greek myths and legends plus the New York premiere of Doug Varone's Lamentation Variation and a restaging of Richard Move's The Show (Achilles Heels), originally created for Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project. In addition, along with a new piece by Nacho Duato, the troupe will bring Graham's Rite of Spring to Carolina Performing Arts (Chapel Hill, NC) as part of a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of the premiere of the Stravinsky piece.

From the original cast of The Show (Achilles Heels). Rasta Thomas (l) and Miguel Anaya (r)
photo by ©JulietaCervante

Yesterday afternoon, the troupe previewed samples from "Myth & Transformation" in its new home--the former, and legendary, Merce Cunningham studio at Westbeth. Varone's quartet for men--part of the company's commission of interpretations of Graham's iconic solo, Lamentation--evokes a sense of the early HIV/AIDS crisis, of dynamic interconnections, interdependence, loss, readjustment and healing within a community at a time when change is the only constant. The Show (Achilles Heels), with its snappy, game-show setting and androgynously-sexy protagonist (played now by Lloyd Mayor, a breakout talent hailing from the Isle of Man), will give freer play to its young dancers' expressive capabilities and seems pitched to draw younger audiences.

[And look what I found! Here's Lloyd Mayor in a video interview, a year or so ago, talking about life at the Rambert School and mentioning his dream of getting into the Graham company.]

BAM drew a decidedly mature, largely upscale crowd of fans of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch for last night's sold-out US premiere of Bausch's final work of surrealist absurdity and romance. "...como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si..." unfolds across a stage floor glowing with cool, white light like a  lightbox or a polar ice sheet, which makes its imagery (and designer Marion Cito's elegant, sensuous gowns) absolutely pop.

With one intermission, the evening runs a giddy 2 hours and 40 minutes--a pretty steep commitment--but the Bausch ensemble rewards attention with alternately gorgeous, tender, clever and amusing scenarios and performances. The begowned women--and Bausch's movement for them as individuals--have always impressed me more than the guys darting around them in their serviceable black shirts and slacks; the luminous female standouts here in "...como el musguito" include Morena Nascimento and Ditta Miranda Jasjfi. But Fernando Suels Mendoza has a wonderful bit as a flirtatious fellow effusively greeting the ladies as they approach and pass. Once you watch him perform this segment, you continue to follow and welcome everything he does.

Mind the cracks, though--those "Antarctic ice" cracks opening up in that glowing white floor. Beneath all of that color and movement and beauty and fun and abandon lie completely ignored hints of disaster in the making.

The company premiered this work just a few weeks before Bausch's cancer diagnosis and shocking, sudden death. With 20/20 hindsight, it appears prescient, a farewell and a gift of mad, extravagant love to her dancers and her audience.

Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch continues at BAM Howard Gilman Opera House tonight and October 20, 23, 24, 26, 27 at 7:30pm and October 21 at 3pm. Tickets are sold out but, for information, click here.

Wenders to speak on "PINA" at BAM

Just announced:

Director Wim Wenders will make appearances at the January 8 screenings of his gorgeous 3D film, PINA, at BAM, doing a Q&A for the 7:20pm show and an introduction for the 9:40pm show.  If you haven't seen this enthralling tribute to the late, great Pina Bausch and her dancers, grab your chance to see it and hear from Wenders, too!

A.O. Scott reviews Wenders' "Pina"

‘Pina,’ a Documentary by Wim Wenders
by A. O. Scott, The New York Times, December 22, 2011

Wim Wenders discusses "Pina"

Wim Wenders on ‘Pina,’ His Film on Pina Bausch’s Dances
by Julie Bloom, The New York Times, December 9, 2011

Get crazier: Wenders' "Pina"

Pina (Germany/France; 2011)
Written and directed by Wim Wenders
106 minutes
in German, English and French with English subtitles

Pina Bausch's surreal choreography and her matchless Tanztheater Wuppertal dancers look marvelous in Wim Wenders' 3D. If regular film and video typically flatten and evaporate live dance performance, 3D restores a good deal of the magic of the moment.

Here, in Bausch's primal Le Sacre du Printemps, is a woman scrunching around in a layer of red dirt; the palpable sensation of a hand slowly gliding over clothing and skin; a ripple of soft fabric as another dancer runs. Another woman gets separated from a crowd, and that isolation becomes more than an arrangement, an idea; it's personally threatening, our empathy, for once, no longer abstract sympathy.

In other places, bodies slither through the legs of chairs or hurl through the air to be caught as the viewer feels it all. The camera takes us close up, into the dances. Bausch's Romantic Vollmond ("Full Moon"), with its watery environment, revs into life in 3D, too. Wild gyrations and impulsive exaltations in the onstage pool of water and the artificial rain shower leave you, sitting at a supposedly safe distance, feeling good and splashed.

Brimming with energy, the film also includes excerpts from Café Müller and Kontakthof, the latter showing scenes performed by some of its interestingly age-variant casts. But if you love Bausch's work, you must see this film especially for the clips of Bausch's own exquisite dancing and for Wenders' unusual, lovely twist on the expected, often overused, strategy of the talking-head interview.

The New York Film Festival will present Pina on Saturday, October 15 at 6:15pm. Tickets are currently unavailable. Please watch the NYFF blog, Facebook and Twitter pages for specific announcements about changes in ticket availability. In addition, there will be a standby line at the screening venue’s box office day-of. For additional information about standby policies, please visit the NYFF Ticket Info page. 

Pina will be released in US theaters on December 23.

The 49th New York Film Festival
Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center
Broadway and 65th Street, Manhattan

Subway: #1 local train to 66th Street/Lincoln Center Station
Bus: The M5, M7, M10, M11, M66 and M104 bus lines all stop within one block of Lincoln Center.

Pina Bausch in 3-D

Wim Wenders reinvents 3-D in epic dance film
by Greg Quill, thestar.com, September 9, 2011

Recommended: "Dancing Dreams"

Dancing Dreams (2009)

Documentary film by Anne Linsel (writing/direction) and Rainer Hoffman (director of photography)

89 min. German with English subtitles

(c)Ursula Kaufmann

I'm just catching up with Dancing Dreams--the most recent Anne Linsel film on choreographer Pina Bausch--which recently became available on DVD through First Run Features. In the wake of Bausch's sudden death in 2009, this film stands as a testament to her unique vision and an intriguing look at all that goes into making a Bausch piece work.

The documentary tracks the development of an unusual project that Bausch conceived in 2007. We watch the selection and training of forty Wuppertal teenagers with no previous training in dance to perform Bausch's 1978 work, Kontakthof (Contact Zone), a study of "tenderness and aggression" in human relations. Interestingly, something of the youngsters' natural adolescent awkwardness fits what's awkward (and also what's rambunctious) about Bausch's movement and scenarios, but that's not all to it. There's an incredible amount of work to be done--like trying to find within oneself and then convincingly release "a serious kind of laugh"--and you get a sense of how difficult it all is. Some of these youngsters agreed to join because they thought it might be a lark, a diversion to share with their mates. What they end up sharing is the challenge and opportunity of a lifetime.

To draw us closer, Linsel follows the struggles, hopes and determination of a few of the kids. We come to know a little about their lives and backgrounds and feel empathy. We hear, ultimately, that the project has boosted confidence and poise and improved school performance. Eventually, all grow into a "close community," as Bausch says, approving the exacting work of her two rehearsal directors--Tanztheater Wuppertal vets Jo-Ann Endicott and Bénédicte Billiet--who have brought these students so far in a relatively short time.

Dancing Dreams is an inspiring film for aspiring young dancers and, for all who will miss Bausch, a loving tribute.

Vollmond: only love can make it rain

Vollmond. Opulent. Audacious. Sure-footed. Funny. Poignant. Elegant. Dashing.
Generous. Unforgettable. Pina Bausch.

Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch

US Premiere of 

Vollmond (Full Moon)

through October 9

2010 Next Wave Festival

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House

Peter Jay Sharp Building

30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn

information, schedule and ticketing
directions

Celebrating Bausch

Celebrating the Life and Work of Pina Bausch 
Screenings and Discussion

Monday, Dec 14, beginning at 10am

Martin E. Segal Theatre, Graduate Center, CUNY
365 Fifth Avenue (at 34th Street), Manhattan

Free. First come, first served.

10am Rite of Spring (Pina Bausch, chor., 1979) Inter Nationes, 1983 (40 minutes)

11am The Search for Dance: Pina Bausch's Theatre with a Difference (documentary film) Inter Nationes, 1994 (30 minutes)

11:45am Pina Bausch: One Day Pina Asked... (documentary film, dir. Chantal Ackerman) Bravo International Films, 1984 (40 minutes)

1:30pm Cafe Mueller (Pina Bausch, chor., 1979) Inter Nationes, 1986 (46 minutes)

2:30pm Kontakthof with Men and Women over 65 (Pina Bausch, chor., 2000) L'Arche Editeur, 2007 (149 minutes)

6:30pm Evening event: Discussion with Anna Kisselgoff (The New York Times) and Annie-B Parson (Big Dance Theatre). Moderated by Royd Climenhaga (Eugene Lang College/The New School University) 

About the Segal Center US Theatre series

Wim Wenders will continue Bausch project

Wim Wenders to Continue Work on Pina Bausch Project
by David Itzkoff, The New York Times, July 21, 2009

A director reflects on "Nefes" and Bausch

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

Bausch troupe eyes the future

The Next Steps for the House of Pina Bausch
by Daniel J. Wakin, The New York Times, July 12, 2009

Pina Bausch obituary, New York Times

Pina Bausch, German Choreographer, Dies at 68
by Daniel J. Wakin, The New York Times, June 30, 2009

Pina Bausch (1940-2009)

This summer of shocking losses continues... A great vision, a fiery artist, she made a stage unlike any other...

Pina Bausch, German choreographer and dancer, dies
by Chris Wiegand, guardian.co.uk, June 30, 2009

Bausch's India-infused soul

Last night, I saw Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch's Bamboo Blues at Brooklyn Academy of Music. For the most part, it's pure and relentless eye-candy, driven by a personal feeling about India--atmospheric, romantic, seductive, mesmeric. The piece runs two hours and twenty minutes--a considerable time investment. The first half's visual and movement motifs, although gorgeous, look so repetitious and indulgent and shallow that they do not inspire confidence in the whole.

But I stayed put.

I realized that Bausch was giving us something deliberate and genuine, something of herself, and we could make of it what we wished. All her choices were valid and apt. Bamboo Blues was a dreamy, languourous walk and a delirious gallop through her interior experience of India.

("Train comes, I don't know it's destination," sing the Sugababes in the show's soundtrack, "It's a one way ticket to a madman's situation.")

By the second half, I'd either found enough to draw me in--especially the music, and extra-especially my beloved 4Hero, and captivating dancing by Shantala Shivalingappa and others--or any resistance had been steadily worn down. Yes, by that point, I think I had become engulfed by all the billowing silk curtains of Bausch's mind.

Bamboo Blues continues at the BAM Gilman Opera House through Saturday evening.

Information and ticketing

And here's a review by dance blogger Evan on Dancing Perfectly Free blog.