A huge admirer of the late Pina Bausch (1940–2009), especially her ambitious World Cities 2012 programme of ten productions here at Sadler’s Wells—as I say, “she changed the face of dance theatre”—but after her death, I did wonder how a company made in her image could sustain her idiosyncratic ethos. There have been several trying on her shoes for size. The latest artistic director, since 2022, is Boris Charmatz with his own vision for dance.
And there are few familiar dancers from her era tonight. I recognise two, Ditta Miranda Jasjfi (since 2000) and Julie Anne Stanzak (since 1986), from past productions, the others are new to me. For first-timers, this is not an issue, but I miss the larger than life personalities of yore.
Tide waits for no man and much water has passed under the bridge since Vollmond (Full Moon) was created in 2006—globally and personally. I loved it in 2013, but somehow it doesn't have the same effect on me tonight. It is joyous, but I must have lost the child in me since. And Vollmond is all about child play, water play and foreplay—on a loop. My son, years ago at primary school age, made a casual observation that adults are only grown-up children. How right he was. Who wants to be a grown-up?
On a bare stage sits a huge, black rock with a shallow stream running underneath it. How this design came about, Peter Pabst, designer since 1980, describes in the programme notes. Basically, Pina liked surprises, and he liked running in thunderstorm rain as a child. It evolved. Everything evolved gradually with Pina.
Both he and Pina were war babies, and this landscape makes me think not only of black and white movies but post-war bleakness. One took pleasure where one could. Though the glamorous women, with their come-on glances, in slinky long rain-drenched dresses and high heels (costume design Marion Cito, 1938–2023), maybe speak of something else.
Full moon suggests madness and letting one’s hair down—these ladies have lots of hair to let down. Losing inhibitions, dancing as if no one is watching and dancing as if everyone is watching, men chewing women, fighting each other, mimicking each other, but I’m still not sure about that suggestive carrot and wooden coat hanger—is the woman a donkey or what? Women as objects?
Balancing on two tall glasses, swishing empty water bottles though the air, overfilling glasses, lots of running, many lengthy solos, enigma on enigma, an orange—or is it a grapefruit—is handed to a front-row punter. With Pina productions, it pays to sit up close. Tonight, too far away upstairs, I miss the close connection. I like it best when they all dance together in their distinctive formation.
And they speak… make witty asides … where best to learn languages—in bed. Definitely postwar, making a living… About being hungry, sour (lemon juice squeezed over arm), being devoured by men, by love, and a pragmatic testing of how quickly a man can undo a bra. Amusing, but I’m sure there is hidden depth in these metaphors. One could write a variety of theses on Pina Bausch’s work. Are they historical pieces now? Can the new generation reproduce what the older endured, being hard tested, interrogated even, by Pina to get those performances that went so deep?
On the surface, all is fun. It starts with a downpour that gets bigger towards the end when buckets and bowls are brought out to paint the air with water arcs. Imagine Jackson Pollock splashing paint on a canvas. Millais’s painting of Ophelia comes to mind when a young woman floats down the stream—on a lilo…
The music that underpins it is as significant as the choreography—that's “the secret” Pina once divulged to musical collaborator Andrea Eisenschneider. He joined the company in 1995 assisting Matthias Burkert (1953–2022), a mainstay of the creative team since 1979. The soundtracks were arduous work, constantly being refigured as the pieces evolved and changed. Tonight, the music ranges far and wide from Tom Waits to Alexander Balanescu.
I always love their choices. The recorded sound does not carry well upstairs. I see some nodding heads. Lovely that the company has sent some down Lethe’s river... Probably much needed. Curtain call loud cheers soon bring them back to earth. Not her best, but unmissable nevertheless, episodic, eccentric, expressive, expressionistic. I’d like to see Nefes again, one I didn't manage to review in the World Cities tour.