Pina Bausch Tanztheater Wupertal: Ten Chi

(It's snowing cherry blossoms!)

Dancers and the artistic community just love Pina Bausch. I've seen clips of her work in my dance history class, European dancers speak reverentially of her in interviews, and I've also seen Pedro Almodovar's film Talk to Her, in which the film's characters are seen weeping with emotion while watching a Pina Bausch ballet. But I've never experienced the full force of her work, mostly because I've never been to Germany to see her company perform, and the company hasn't toured this way in a very long time. I finally got my chance to see it all for myself when Pina Bausch Tanztheater Wupertal performed at UCLA's Royce Hall earlier this month (Nov 8).

And to a large extent, I now get what a lot of the fuss was about. Bausch is masterful at creating intimate moments of incredible beauty and feeling. In the middle of Act 1, there was one solo where a female dancer tiptoes in a small circle in the center of the stage; the movement had such purpose, character and quiet energy that it became incredibly engaging and beautiful, despite being only one dancer amidst the larger hubbub of the whole production. Hubbub which included: a giant sculptural whale fin, dancers who walked onto the stage and started saying random odd things ("Hello! I think it is time for us to go now!" - then repeated it with ten variations on the same sentence), one dancer riding across the stage on another dancer's back like a horse, and then, at the end of Act 1 and for the next two hours, cherry blossoms snowing down from the rafters.

Scenes and sequences flowed in what appeared to be stream of consciousness fashion; things just sort of moved into each other as the other scene ended. It was always visually engaging, like a theater of images more than purely dance performance. I suppose thats where the "tanztheater" in the title comes from. The evening was long - three hours! - and the hall was oppressively warm, which made me feel every minute of the performance, but I was very glad that I saw it.