A dreamscape! Photograph by Tony Lewis. Your weekly source for world-class dance reviews, interviews, articles, and more. In the dark, with Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, nature has been brought indoors, and in the process it has changed its makeup. Petals and stems were plastic all the better to fray the hem of your evening attire, my dear , and unruly wilderness was ordered in near-perfect rows.
In this fake field, carnations grow to a uniform height with no colour deviation: flesh incarnations. My own love affair with the unique humanist core of Bausch began late and unknowingly. Caught in an exquisite and demanding tribute, within the dark embrace of the cinema my eyes were opened.
Film had introduced us, and I was keen for more. It feels a little like recounting a dream. She honed her gaze into an extraordinarily sensitive tool for recognizing and analyzing everything we say and express with our movements and gestures, for everything we reveal about ourselves through them. Cue: the appearance of four suited officials and their accompanying German Shepherds.
In the blink of an eye, an innocent childlike arena revealed itself to be a police state. Humorous acts have given over to improper and finally now teeter on the edge of shameful and humiliating.
You may even find yourself ejected from the theatre altogether. Her infamous gaze continues to be not just on the dancers on the stage; it is also fixed on the audience. Titillation comes at a price. What else do you wanna see!?! I can do anything! With the rough edges of the more challenging components read: experimental gestures and quiet, unsettling bits smoothed over, the familiar classical steps soothed the audience like a baby being rocked to sleep.
