Guest performance
Inauguration of the Culture Season North Rhine-Westphalia
in Poland 2011/2012
CAFE MÜ LLER: Art of Pina Bausch
Premiere: Opernhaus Wuppertal, 20 May 1978
Director and Choreographer : Pina Bausch
Music: Henry Purcell
Set and Costume Designer: Rolf Borzik
Dancers:
Helena Pikon, Dominique Mercy, Nazareth Panadero, Jean-Laurent Sasportes, Michael Strecker, Aida Vainieri
Duration: 45 min.
DAS FRÜHLINGSOPFER
Premiere: Opernhaus Wuppertal, 20 December 1975
Director and Choreographer : Pina Bausch
Music: Igor Stravinsky
Set and Costume Designer: Rolf Borzik
Dancers:
Pablo Aran Gimeno, Andrey Berezin, Damiano Ottavio Bigi, Wladislav Bondarenko, Luiza Braz Batista, Lea Burkart, Cagdas Ermis, Chang-Wen Hsu, Meritxell Checa Esteban, Ching-Yu Chi, Aleš Čuček, Ji-Hye Chung, Clémentine Deluy, Darwin Diaz, Silvia Farias Heredia, Mareike Franz, Rudolf Giglberger, Chrystel Guillebeaud, Ditta Miranda Jasjfi, Daphnis Kokkinos, Kyungwoo Kwon, Raymond Liew Jin Pin, Thusnelda Mercy, Blanca Noguerol Ramirez, Jorge Puerta Armenta, Franko Schmidt, Azusa Seyama, Julian Stierle, Michael Strecker, Fernando Suels Mendoza, Tsai Wei Tien, Anna Wehsarg, Tsai-Chin Yu, Andy Zondag, Sergey Zhukov
Duration: 35 min.
Managing Director: Dirk Hesse
Artistic Directors: Dominique Mercy, Robert Sturm
Cooperation:
Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch
Goethe-Institut
Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera
City of Warsaw
Tanztheater Wuppertal
It began with controversy; in 1973 Pina Bausch was appointed director of dance for the Wuppertal theatres and the form she developed in those early years, a mixture of dance and theatre, was wholly unfamiliar. In her performances the players did not merely dance; they spoke, sang – and sometimes they cried or laughed too. But this strange new work succeeded in establishing itself. In Wuppertal the seeds were sown for a revolution which was to emancipate and redefine dance throughout the world. Dance theatre evolved into a unique genre, inspiring choreographers throughout the world and influencing theatre and classical ballet too. Its global success can be attributed to the fact that Pina Bausch made a universal need the key subject of her work: the need for love, for intimacy and emotional security. To this end she developed an artistic form which could incorporate highly diverse cultural influences. In consistently renewed poetic excursions she investigated what brings us closer to fulfilling our need for love, and what distances us from it. Hers is a world theatre which does not seek to teach, does not claim to know better, instead generating experiences: exhilarating or sorrowful, gentle or confrontational – often comic or absurd too. It creates driven, moving images of inner landscapes, exploring the precise state of human feelings while never giving up hope that the longing for love can one day be met. Alongside hope, a close engagement with reality is another key to the work; the pieces consistently relate to things every member of the audience knows; has experienced personally and physically. Over the thirty-six years in which Pina Bausch shaped the work of the Tanztheater Wuppertal, till her death in 2009, she created a an oeuvre which casts an unerring gaze at reality, while simultaneously giving us the courage to be true to our own wishes and desires. Her unique ensemble, rich with varied personalities, will continue to maintain these values in the years to come.
NORBERT SERVOS
Translated by Steph Morris
Go to Tanztheater Wuppertal's site
The upcoming ballet festival at the Teatr Wielki, held every autumn, promises to be very attractive in its third year. It will involve six companies from France, The Netherlands, Germany, Poland, and Japan presenting a very diverse repertoire. However, the programme of the 3rd Days of Dance features mainly contemporary choreographic works by famous artists, such as Pina Bausch, Jiří Kylián, and Krzysztof Pastor. We will meet the French choreographer Kader Attou and his company, and see a new work by Robert Bondara, a young choreographer from the Polish National Ballet. We will also pay tribute to the Polish and Japanese dance traditions in performances by the Mazowsze and Reika ensembles.
Of course the festival’s highlight will be the visit of the Wuppertal Tanztheater; they will present works by Pina Bausch, the creator of dance theatre who recently passed away. We will see two different performances by the famous German choreographer: a two-part evening with Café Müller and Das Frühlingsopfer , and one of her last works, Vollmond. Next, there will be Jiří Kylián’s very original production Last Touch First endorsed by the Holland Dance Festival in The Hague and prepared together with Michael Schumacher and Sabine Kupferberg. It requires a very special setting, so it will be shown on the Chamber Stage to a limited audience. La Compagnie Accrorap from France with Kader Attou will bring its dance interpretation of Henryk Mikołaj Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs to Warsaw.
Photos: 1-2 Café Müller, 3-5 Das Frühlingsopfer, Maarten vanden Abeele ©
Sponsor of the performances:
The project is part of the Culture Season
North Rhine-Westphalia in Poland 2011/2012
Partner:
With support from:
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