Pina Bausch's Bamboo Blues

Pina Bausch's Bamboo Blues, which I saw at the BAM on Dec 14 with her company Tanztheater Wupertal, was very much the same as the last Pina Bausch work that I saw last year: both were vague travelogues (Bamboo Blues of India and Ten Chi, which I saw at UCLA, of Japan) that unfurled in a dreamlike manner, with tableaus flowing into and on top of one another. Each invariably featured sophisticated women in flowy dresses who stared at the audience with mischievous smiles, dancing dances that largely involved throwing their hair around in big, swooping circles. Men are the secondary characters in mini scenes, often humorous or sensual sidekicks. And the random outbursts of spoken words ("How do you do?"), repeated in succession amidst the motion. There is dance too, but this is definitely dance theater more than pure dance.

Bamboo Blues had an extra flavor of India sprinkled on top. The flavor came as projections on the stage and on the back wall, which was composed of flowing white drapes. The projections were films of rides through the forest of Indian countryside, and at another instance, a still image of Bollywood film stars. A few tableaus were evocative of India: pairs of dancers came to different corners of the stage and flung huge white cloths majestically into the air, catching opposite corners to fold them in half - an elegant way to fold laundry if there ever was one. In another involving cloth, the dancers divided into two lines in the center of the stage, giggling, and with men on one side, the women on the other. The men threw strips of cloth across the small divide for the women to catch; the women caught at different moments and the men reeled the laughing women in. It was a playful moment, evocative of dances with saris, a moment that brilliantly captured the humanity of the movement.

I guess you could say that it was the same old Pina Bausch (and my mind wandered a few times when yet another woman in a flowy dress started throwing her hair around), but oh to see that same old Pina. The two and a half hour evening had many moments of breathtaking beauty, created brilliantly by only a small bit a solitary movement, or some expert composition of simple stage imagery. Bausch's work focuses so beautifully on the humanity of her dancers, teasing out small, isolated moments of everyday life with insightful detail and beauty.

Photos: Richard Termine