Tanztheater Wuppertal - Pina Bausch

[Ian Macmillan]

In catching up after some days away, I see that the 'Eurotrash' discussion continues on the Cedar LakeNews thread. However, there were a couple of links specifically on the late Pina Bausch's Tanztheater Wuppertal posted over the weekend that have some relevance to all of that, and I repeat them here as perhaps a more suitable spot for any further discussion.

 

The first was Laura Cappelle's article in the Financial Times in which she reflects on how the company is facing its future without its founder. I have to say that much of what she says struck a chord with me, as the main reaction I had on leaving a cinema a year or so ago after seeing the documentary "PIna" was that the company seemed to have become something of a cult to the memory of Pina. That may well be an impression caused by the producer's decision to have dancers individually interviewed but, whatever the case, it did make me wonder about how the situation created could survive for too long. And now, some three years on from her death, it appears that the matter of tackling new work is still taboo. I wish them all well but I find it odd, I must say.

 

The second link is again from the FT, this time a podcast of a discussion between Alastair Spalding, the Director at Sadler's Wells, and the critic Clement Crisp, in which the latter defends his views on Tanztheater generally, and particularly as regards Bausch, both reasonably and eloquently ..... and even ends by hoping that a member of the company might move on from the legacy work and come up with something new!