New beginnings at two of Germany's best-known dance companies as Sasha Waltz in Berlin and Adolphe Binder at the Pina Bausch ensemble in Wuppertal present new programs.
Pina Bausch is one of Germany's best known cultural exports. The dancer and choreographer, who died eight years ago, made a name for herself and her eponymous Wuppertal-based company worldwide. Following her death, several of the ensemble's members left the company; however, nearly half of the 37 dancers who remain today once worked with Pina Bausch herself.
Adolphe Binder administers and is artistic director of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina BauschImage: picture-alliance/dpa/C.Seidel
Adolphe Binder and the future of the Pina Bausch dance company
The Pina Bausch dance company has a new culture manager and dance curator since May, 48-year-old Adolphe Binder.
Binder comes to the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch after five years as the artistic director of the Gothenburg Danskompani, in Sweden. Among her other previous roles, she was artistic director of the ballet of Berlin's Komische Oper as well as head dramatic advisor of the Deutsche Oper's dance company.
In Wuppertal, Binder is now presenting her vision for the future. That includes pulling from the more than 40 pieces in Bausch's choreographic repertoire that are available to the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch.
She will also carry on with guest appearances by the dance company in the US, Asia and across Europe.
Sasha Waltz returns to Berlin
Over in Berlin, there is talk of a new start for choreographer Sasha Waltz, who is premiering her first piece in 12 years. "Kreatur" features 14 dancers who grapple with questions of power and powerlessness in a divided society on stage at Berlin's Radialsystem V venue.
The well-known lighting expert Urs Schönebaum will handle stage lighting while the musical trio behind "Soundwalk Collective" will provide the sounds to accompany the dancers. It's a piece that the company Sasha Waltz & Guests has created in cooperation with the Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen.
Sasha Waltz: Her new choreography, "Kreatur," premieres on June 9 in BerlinImage: picture alliance/dpa/Uli Deck
Waltz has made peace with Berlin
Beginning in 2019-2020, Waltz will head the Staatsballett Berlin together with choreographer Johannes Öhman. The decision comes after disagreements between Sasha Waltz and the city of Berlin surrounding finances and the aesthetic direction of the dance ensemble bearing her name.
As a result, Waltz has spent much of the last several years working abroad. In collaboration with Öhman, the dancer has still been able to coordinate a program for Berlin that gives equal space to both classical ballet and modern dance.
jk/ct/eg (with dpa)
Pina Bausch: A revolutionary choreographer
Life without dance was unthinkable for choreographer Pina Bausch. Her company, founded in Wuppertal in the 1970s, made her a star in the world of choreography. A museum in Bonn now presents insights into her life.
It has been seven years since Pina Bausch's death. But her dance company continues to be world renowned, with performers from around the world inspiring and instructing each other - as per her wishes. "We don't just travel," Bausch once said," We are already a world of our own."
As founder and head of Tanztheater Wuppertal, Pina Bausch changed the world of dance with her interpretations. In her acceptance speech for the coveted Kyoto Award in Japan in 2007, Bausch said, "I still have so much ahead of me." It wasn't long after that she passed away, aged 67. The Bundeskunsthalle Bonn opens its exhibition on her life and work this week, celebrating her achievements.
"I can't express a building or anything like that through dance," Pina Bausch once told German journalist Roger Willemsen in an interview. "I am dependent on having to go where the People are." This picture shows Bausch's 1960 performance of "Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor" at the Juilliard School in New York, based on a choreography conceived by Doris Humphrey in 1938.
Pina Bausch came to the industrial German city of Wuppertal in the mid 1970s. It didn't take long for her Tanztheater Wuppertal to gain global recognition for its poetic interpretation of everyday situations through dance. Bausch is recognized as one of the most important contemporary choreographers. "There are many very simple things which only a very good dancer can do," she once said.
Pina Bausch is pictured here in a choreography by Antony Tudor in Berlin 1962. "All I've ever wanted to do was dance," Bausch once said. "When I choreographed, I did it because I wanted to express something through dance that meant something to me."
The exhibition in Bonn houses a recreation of Bausch's erstwhile rehearsal space. "Our rehearsals take place at the Lichtburg theater, a cinema building left from the 1950s. On my way there, I always encounter so many sad-looking, tired people at the bus stop along the way. I try to incorporate those feelings in our productions," said Bausch.
German choreographer Pina Bausch, born in 1940, revolutionizedthe world of modern dance, though she insisted that she had never planned to define a new style or direction in performance. "The formarose on its own out of the questions I had," Bausch said. "I'm not really interested in human movement, but much more in what moves humans."
Pina Bausch's work lives on, moving from stage to stage around the globe. You can catch her lively choreographies like "Frühlingsopfer" (Spring offering) or "Vollmond" (Full moon) on tour - or come to her Tanztheater Wuppertal in Germany.
The exhibition in Bonn presents the highlights of Pina Bausch's career while also examining her methods. Her close relationship with the dancers in her ensemble remained a cornerstone of her work and built the base of much of her inspiration, as was the case in her in the 1983 production of "Nelken" (Carnations) at the Palais des Papes in Avignon, France.
The Bundeskunsthalle Bonn published a book on Pina Bausch to coincide with the exhibition. Packed with evocative quotes and speeches from Bausch, it explains the core of her method. "It is important to me to present the essence of my dancers on stage, so people can know them. In these choreographies, you have to be yourself. No one is required to act." The exhibition continues until July 24.
