Pina Bausch: clip-by-clip dance guide

The late choreographer's work had the power to devastate and exhilarate – as these videos show

Before I saw my first Pina Bausch piece, I was convinced I'd hate it. At the time, I was heavily into cool, modernist contemporary dance, and I figured Bausch would be pretty much the opposite (I wasn't wrong). Plus, the piece was three hours long, with no interval. And I had terrible flu. Still, it was billed as a must-see, so I hauled myself along thinking, "This had better be a big deal."

It was a big deal. For three unbroken hours, I was fixed to my seat; the flu simply wilted through lack of attention. The piece was called Viktor. The stage was enclosed on three sides by a vast wall of earth; an enigmatic figure marked time through the entire piece by tipping one slow spadeful of soil after another on to the floor. Plenty happened on stage: Bausch dealt us different scenes – absurd, fascinating, comic, heartfelt, drab. And all the while, that unobtrusive tick-tock of falling soil made the stage feel like a grave being filled. I felt as if she was simultaneously pointing to the variety of life and showing its frame of death. The scale of that vision left me both devastated and elated.

Bausch could do that to you: take you to a higher place that you didn't even know existed. Not all the time and not every time, but she could do it. How? One way was by demanding that her performers dig deep within their own memories and feelings; famously, Bausch said that she was not interested in how people move, but in what moves them.

Here, for example, is Dominique Mercy in Nelken. He's doing ballet steps, but it's a form of sparring with his spectators – even with the idea of spectacle itself.

Bausch would often use speech, song, clothing and props alongside movement – whatever she thought might convey her theme. Then, she would break out of conventional stage illusions: real dogs patrolled in Nelken, real tea was poured for the audience in 1980. Her sets were filled with leaves, flowers or water.

She was real with movement, too, making you notice the panting, the sweat, the bruises. Take the finale of her Rite of Spring (the only version I know in which the choreography actually matches the force of Stravinsky's music). The stage is covered with peat, and the entire cast is smeared with soil and sweat. When the woman collapses at the end of her harrowing solo, you sense the exhaustion is real enough. Notice also the man lying behind her, his arms outstretched for the whole dance. He is still, but you feel the ache building in those arms.

Bausch loved choreographic repetition. Here is the famous "unrequited embrace" from Café Müller. Characteristically, she used a choreographic device to theatrical ends, in this case using a repeated phrase to reveal an internalised, dysfunctional cycle of behaviour. Many of her pieces featured a kind of absurdist chorus line, or a lineup of the entire cast repeating the same absurdist sequence of gestures.

Watch to the end of the Café Müller clip, and you're left with a very Bauschian sense of people as lost souls, who haunt their own bodies. You'll also see two stage outfits that Bausch uses over and over again: a shapeless shift dress with bare feet and loose hair (that's Bausch herself in this clip); or high heels with prim dress and a chignon. Bausch's men often wear suits, go bare-chested or simply wear women's clothes. Whatever the costume, Bausch's pieces nearly always circle the subject of gender.

"Circling" is apt; she didn't do linear. Her pieces were montages, free associations, scenes strung together in a kind of dream logic. This clip from Die Klage der Kaiserin reveals many ingredients: a repeated action, transvestism, a sense of drowning, a sense of dreaming – and, an inexplicable emotional punch.

Bausch's influence and inspiration reached far beyond the usual borders of dance: she has fans and followers in theatre, in film, in visual arts. In the end, I can't explain how she did what she did. All I know is that in her grand imaginings of desire, habit, instinct and power, we recognised something of ourselves – and we were both devastated and elated by what we saw.

Contributor

Sanjoy Roy

The GuardianTramp

Related Content

Article image
Step-by-step guide to dance: Pina Bausch/Tanztheater Wuppertal

Sanjoy Roy: The late Pina Bausch's searing, psychologically raw choreography lives on in the work of her loyal dance company

Sanjoy Roy

30, Mar, 2010 @11:13 AM

Article image
Obituary: Pina Bausch

Obituary German choreographer whose bleak vision changed the face of European dance

Luke Jennings

30, Jun, 2009 @11:01 PM

Article image
This week's new dance: Pina Bausch | Luca Silvestrini

Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch: 1980 | Luca Silvestrini's Protein: Border Tales

Judith Mackrell

08, Feb, 2014 @6:00 AM

Article image
Pina Bausch for ever

Was it thrilling to dance for the late, great Pina Bausch – or terrifying? As the troupe she created heads for Edinburgh, Judith Mackrell asks key members to explain her magic

Judith Mackrell

09, Aug, 2010 @8:31 PM

Article image
Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch | Dance review

As her company brings a revival of a 1978 work to London, the late Pina Bausch's importance has never been greater, especially in Europe, says Luke Jennings

Luke Jennings

28, Mar, 2010 @12:05 AM

Article image
Dance review: Pina Bausch Wuppertal Tanztheater / Sadler's Wells, London

This long-sold-out season proves an electrifying experience, finds Judith Mackrell

Judith Mackrell

14, Feb, 2008 @2:59 PM

Article image
Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch; Richard Alston Dance Company – review

Tanztheater Wuppertal deliver more dark ennui, Richard Alston dance sunny side up, writes Luke Jennings

Luke Jennings

24, Feb, 2013 @12:05 AM

Article image
The sound of Pina Bausch
As Sweet Mambo is staged at the Edinburgh festival, Wim Wenders, music adviser Matthias Burkert and artists including Madeleine Peyroux reflect on Tanztheater Wuppertal’s eclectic soundtrack. By Chris Wiegand

Chris Wiegand

24, Aug, 2014 @1:17 PM

Article image
Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch - review

The range and intensity of her movement here are so remarkable, you have to wonder what other dances Bausch might have gone on to create, writes Judith Mackrell

Judith Mackrell

28, Oct, 2010 @8:31 PM

Article image
Farewell to Pina Bausch, the dangerous magician of modern dance | Judith Mackrell
Judith Mackrell: Beautiful and strange, tragic yet hopeful, Pina Bausch's creations entranced audiences. The news of her death is terribly sad – and a challenge for dance-makers

Judith Mackrell

30, Jun, 2009 @5:04 PM