Pina Bausch in USA

Pina Bausch: Dancing across Borders
Author(s): Johannes Birringer

Source: The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Summer, 1986), pp. 85-97
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1145729
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Pina
Bausch
Dancing Across Borders
JohannesBirringer
It is not too long ago that the 1984Olympic Arts Festivalin Los Angeles, with its marathonprogramof more than400 performancesand exhibitions from 18 countries,went out of its way to demonstratethe seductivenessof spectacularconsumptionin the nameof the arts. Or, rather,in
the name of major foreign artists who were brought together so that
corporatesponsors and multinationalculture producerscould speak of
their art as a "universallanguage,a bridge of illuminationthat connects
all of us" (the Olympic Arts FestivalCatalog).
Whateverthe hiddenmotives of such advertising,it is a gesturetoward
a kind of innocentand immediateconsumption.But when PinaBausch's
WuppertalerTanztheater,still unknown in this country outside of New
York, opened the Olympic Festival with such emotionally devastating
(1977), the Festivalhad its first
piecesas Caf Miiller(1978)and Bluebeard
scandal.
unpredicted
With the hype surroundingBausch'sreturnto the Brooklyn Academy
of Music's 1985 Next Wave Festival (she was there first in 1984), we
entereda second stage in the receptionof her "language"and in the critics' predictableentrenchment.WhereasBAM can affordto be ironic by
announcingthat the West Germantanztheaterwill help "deprovincialize
New York City" (Lichtenstein1985:4),it is somewhat more perplexing
to notice how the criticalwriting on performancein New York City
mimics the new provincialismby launchingits defensivemissilesagainst
the challengeof Bausch'sineradicableGermanness.
Anna Kisselgoffof The New YorkTimes,for example, falls back into
unwarrantedcliches. She arguesthat audiencesaccustomedto the formalist aestheticof the United States' "pure dance" are necessarilystartled
when they see the innovative interactionbetween theaterand dance in
foreign works (such as those by Bausch, the FrenchGroupeEmile Dubois, and butoh performers)that have pushedthe bordersof their disciplines by adding expression,feeling, and angst to the form (1985:HI4).
WhenKisselgoffaskedBauschwhethershe would be interestedin working only with "pureform" and without the need to expressfeeling, the
choreographerprobablydidn't even understandthe question.
I'm glad, however, that it was askedbecauseits strikingdisingenuousness and incoherenceintimatethe more generalbreakdownof criticalfaculties and languagesvis-a-vis a pluralisticand diversifiedculture.A cul85
86 PinaBausch
ture in which there are no pure, autonomous forms but constant
transformations,mutations,and recapitulationsinevitablyproducingindifferenceto the specificborders(andideologicallimits) of a work of art,
of a performance.And occasionally,they also producefashionable,selfstimulatingcontroversiesabout equivocalmeanings,as if the conditions
for an unequivocal,adversarialavant-gardestill existed.
The borderlinein Bausch'stanztheateris the concretehuman body, a
body that has specific qualitiesand a personalhistory-but also a body
that is written about, and written into social representationsof gender,
of the body for granted,
race, and class. We tend to take representations
whether we see them in advertisements,films, photographs,pornography, or in the beautiful,etherealposes of balletdancers.Every pose, every still, and every movement of the body partakesin the particularrepresentationaleconomy with which a culturedirectsand dominateswhat
is perceivedas reality.
Our physicalconventions,like the "official"imagesof the sexualbody,
are part of that reality and that perception.In Bausch'sworks we are
I. Bluebeard (1977): In
Bluebeard'scastle, male
body-building
prostitutes
itself in front of a doll.
(Photo by Ulli Weiss)
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Pina Bausch 87
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2. Don't Be Afraid
confronteddirectlywith the gestusof conventionsandinternalizednorms
(1976):Thewould-be
we no longer see. In Don'tBe Afraid(1976), the seducerrepeatedlysings
rapist,withhandsingloves,
withthose
"Lookat me-don't be afraid"in a soft voice beforehe throws the womjoins company
an to the groundand rapesher. The woman (HelenaPikon), who resisted whohavealreadybeen
the seductionfor a long time, then gets up andjoins a whorish company victimized.(Photoby Ulli
of men and women in colorfulslips andcorsets.They dancethe hilarious, Weiss)
cross-dresseddanceof victims who have grown tough and professional.
"We are the objects of your suave entrapment"(text from Barbara
Krugerphotograph,1983):bodiesarecontinuouslydressedup anddown,
and the make-up spills all over. This leitmotif capturesthe thrust of
Bausch'sstaging of the Kurt Weill songs and Bertolt Brechttext in The
SevenDeadlySins/Don'tBe Afraid(1976).The slippingof the subjectpositions-who is the "we" and the "your"?-is a crucialdramaturgical
strategy in her work that should not be overlookedby us, the audience.We
are membersof the economy of onlookers.
That women pose and are posed as victims in our society is partof the
problem,and Bauschconfrontsit head-dnin her bitterlyironictreatment
of Brechtiandidacticism.Brechtwas a powerfulparable-maker
and theorist of his own politicaltheater.In TheSevenDeadlySins, he triedto raise
critical consciousnessby demonstrating,through the double image of
AnnaI/AnnaII, how women teachthemselvesto be sexualcommodities
undercapitalism'sobscene reversalof the "deadlysins" now proclaimed
virtuesif only they turn a profit and producemiddle-classcomfort. Larger socialprocessesof contradictoryself-educationundercapitalismareex-
88 Pina Bausch
v.
o i-ld
-i
.
.
3. The Seven Deadly Sins

(1976): Anna I (Josephine
Ann Endicott)smiles at the
brightfuturepromisedto
her. (Photo by Ulli Weiss)
posed, in other words, by re-imposing and re-hearsing the image of

woman-as-victim.
In Josephine Ann Endicott's performance of Anna II we see that process of Brechtian image-making exposed, too. In all Bausch's works,
from the early Rite of Spring (1975) to 1980 (1980) and On the Mountain a
Cry WasHeard (1984), the authoritative male voice-over is replaced by an

estrangement effect that makes itself felt through the skin. Often we see
silent dances and strangely familiar rituals performed with such emotional
intensity that the process of watching the scene makes us painfully aware
of the conventions of watching. At the same time, Bausch's dancers acknowledge and investigate the presence of an audience. Frequently, the
house lights come on, and the dancers stroll along the aisles or come
downstage looking curiously at the on-lookers. Occasionally they serve a
cup of tea, or, as in Kontakthof(1978), they may need to borrow a quarter
from a spectator to operate the automatic hobbyhorse on stage.
In Kontakthofthe "setting" in the theater is put under intense scrutiny.
The actual constraints of public exposure/theatrical production are thematized and shown to overlap with the individually experienced complexes
and fears of inadequacy. The dancers parade up and down the stage, accompanied by bouncy popular songs and ballroom music, sending up the
concrete working situation of public performers. They display themselves
in profile, show their backs, their teeth, their hands and feet. Embarrassed attempts to hide physical inadequacies-the breasts are too small,
the nose too big, the dress never quite fits-intermingle with outbursts of
Pina Bausch 89
4. Kontakthof (1978):
The group rehearsessocial
rituals,seekingcontactacross
the bordersofformality and
convention.(Photo by Ulli
Weiss)
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5. 1980 (1980): Showing

off theirkneesand legs, the
dancersdevelopa parody of
aggressivebeautycontests.
(Photo by Arici & Smith)
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go PinaBausch
compulsive exhibitionism, which the company members automatically
applaud.Bausch'sprincipleof montage,inheritedfrom the Brechtiantheater,is used to interweavean extraordinaryseriesof self-revealingmechanisms:the whole repetitivecatalogof gesturesand behaviorswith which
we sell the best aspectsof our personalities.
Bauschrevealshow individualsfeel physicallycompelledto participate
in the games people play-seeking recognition,affection,and social acceptance.Deeply felt, unadmittedhumantruthsareglimpsedthroughthe
fragileveneer of mandatoryconventionsthat negate sensualfreedomin
the face of simulatedhappiness.Popularromanticsongs and Hollywood
clichesare playedoff againsttragicomiceffectsproducedby the dancers'
"fulfillment"of our expectations.They show us how beautifulthey are,
how affectionateandaggressivelysuccessfulthey canbe, andhow desperately they need contact.Runningtowardthe front rows, they threatento
fallover the edge thatseparatesaudienceandstage. Suchexplicitreferences to the socialrealityof the theatermerelyhighlightthe processthrough
which Bausch'schoreographyof the social physiquetranslatesemotional
needs-experienced as a generallyoppressivecompulsion that assumes
specificmale and femaleforms-into a widerconstellationof culturalattitudes toward the genres that inform such attitudes. Without effort, a
Bauschevening crossesand recrossesthe boundariesbetweenlove song,
film, ballet, revue, circus, and social dance. Each crossing,however, reflects a high awarenessof the content and the potentialinhibitionsof a
chosen form. The audience'sautomaticexpectationsof or responsesto
the forms areincorporatedinto the parodicactionon stage.
Sometimes,the dancers(an Minarikand DominiqueMercyin particular) grotesquelyexaggeratethis doubling of theaterreality;more often,
they plan these shifts from one emotional atmosphereto anotherwith
6. Rite of Spring(1975):
victimhas
Thesacrificial
beenchosenandprepares
for
herdeath.(Photoby Ulli
Weiss)
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PinaBausch 91
perfectlydeadpanseriousness.Thereare certainlimits to the crossings,of
course. I have seen the companyperformin Germany,Italy, France,and
the U.S., and each time they make considerableefforts to approachparticularaudiences.The spoken bits of dialog are usually renderedin the
languageof the host country. Nevertheless, "automatic"audiencereactions differfrom countryto country,from evening to evening.
BAM audiencesin 1985sat perplexedand unmovedthroughan episode
in Kontihkthof
in which the dancersseatedthemselveswith their backs to
the audienceto watch a Germandocumentaryfilm on the breedingbehaviorof small water animals.The joke was lost on the Americanaudience. Similarproblemsarisewhen audiencescan'tfeel any of the connotations of the Germanlove songs of the 'Sos or in the sentimentaltango
that the Germanmiddle class danced to during its post-WorldWar II
reconstruction.
In the works of Bausch and other post-war Germanchoreographers
such as MechthildGrossmann'sWhereMy Sun ShinesForMe (1984), the
parodyof conventions,and the truthof parody,are alwayslinkedwith a
sense of personallyexperiencedhistory. Repressedmemory of childhood
traumascan be retrievedif only one listenscarefullyenoughto the repetitions of the socializedbody. "We must look again and again," Bausch
once said in defenseof her excessive repetitions,"andmaybe the saddest
thing aboutour obsessionsis that they often look so cheerful."I counted
perhaps40 or 50 differentchildhood games in 1980and Arien (1979).
Whenthe Wuppertaldancersrecallthe youthfuljoy with which they used
to drive away the fear built into all children'sgames, the hide-and-seek
exercisesalways look ambiguouslysad and cheerfulat the same time.
Bausch'sdramaturgical
method becomesmore accessibleover time; these
adult remembrancesof things past are made to evolve slowly and unobtrusively.They take time, and sometimeswe cannotsee them all at once
becausethey run parallel,commentingon and overlappingwith eachother. Sometimesthey returnin a differentcontext and assume a different
emotionalquality,like the many storiesthat emergeand disappearagain,
accentuatingthe subjectiverealityof experiencesthat areboth pleasurable
and painful.
SilviaKesselheim,in 198o,repeatedlytells us how, as a child left alone
in the dark, she would cry out, and how her nanny would come in and
"turnon the light-and she would hit me, she would hit me, she would
hit me." After we have heardthe story five times, it becomespoignantly
clearthat the pleasureof pain can become almost mechanical,automatic.
We must listen againand again.
Even with the overtly brutal treatmentof the theme in Bluebeard-a
piece aboutan obsessivemale sadistwho kills the women he loves-I am
temptedto emphasizethe redemptiveeffect of repetition.While "Bluebeard"is caughtup with his machine,"listeningto a tape recording"of
his murderousdesire (the voices that sing about love and death in B6la
Bart6k'sopera),the women dancersgathertheirstrengthwith theirbacks
to the walls, laughingat the monsterin theirmidst. Sincemost American
audienceswere outragedby the violence portrayedin the performance,
one might ask why they respondedto the violenceand not to the sharply
focussed process of recognition that leads from the pathos of self-absorbedsexualobsessionto the much largerpatternsof mechanicalevasion
that a guilt-riddensociety resortsto when it prefersto deny the consequencesof its continuingaggression.
In her earlierpieces, Bausch seemed less interestedin the grotesque
92 Pina Bausch
aspects of male violence. In her choreographic treatment of Stravinsky's
Rite of Spring, the ritual dance was constantly repeated-to the point of
total exhaustion-as a central metaphor for the well-rehearsed behavior of
men following the rules of society and selecting women as sacrificial victims, even as the women themselves envision and anticipate the selection.
In Arien, the stage is not covered with brown earth, as in Rite of Spring,
but with ankle-deep water. It is surrounded by reflecting mirrors that
create an almost surreal combination of surfaces. The tone has changed,
too. In a series of parodic images of narcissistic self-regard, Arien establishes a melancholy mood that seems provoked by the individual's constant effort to maintain a sense of self-expresson and self-comprehension
in the face of the mechanical violence that so often dominates the appearances, if not in the theater, then certainly in our lives.
In Bausch's recent theater pieces, such efforts are often comic because
they literally carry out the beautiful metaphors of our operas and classical
ballets. In Arien, fairytale queens and divas who are grotesquely decorated
and dressed up by their partners plunge into movement phrases and word
litanies. They look and sound nonsensical in comparison with the old
Italian belcanto arias (recordings by Beniamino Gigli) and Beethoven's
Moonlight Sonata. It is the music that makes no sense or the words and
movements? We cannot be sure; certainty seems lost as the dancers show
us how forms, or formal atmospheres, can come together momentarily,
only to disintegrate.
The naked reality of the performers' bodies in Arien begins to shine
through the wet costumes as they slosh through the water, tumbling forward with the desperate determination to act out normal routines under
abnormal circumstances. They do so with high operatic pathos, worthy
of Wagner's Gotterddmmerung,
as when Lutz F6rster solemnly carries the
lifeless Beatrice Libonati across the pool, their lips glued in a kiss. But
that pathos is a dead language, like the reified media gossip that the dancers shout at each other and at the audience. When a huge hippopotamus
rises out of the water, nobody seems to notice the incongruity. Bausch's
tanztheater lives through such incongruities; the stage is awash with consumer objects that seem out of place or useless, but the actors cling to
them for dear life. How life is deformed by such clinging is shown during
the grand dinner party in Arien, surely the most chaotic scene ever staged
on the BAM Opera House stage. The solemnly disintegrating party
drowns in an all-out, deliberately self-indulgent schizophrenia that is
frightening-if we care to see our culture reflected in it.
Arien has many such dark undertones that undercut our laughter. Jan
Minarik's antics as the party photographer or Josephine Ann Endicott's
Titania-like love affair with the sad-looking hippo offer comic relief that
is coupled with a sense of danger. It is as if we were taking pictures of a
society doomed to drown its catastrophic desires in a continuous masquerade of optimism, an on-going party. "What do you think of arias?,"
one of the dancers asks as she puts thick make-up on her face. "I associate
them with blood-red fingernails and torture," is one of the answers.
It is pointless to ask Pina Bausch what her pieces are about. "It is never
something you can describe exactly," she told me. "Basically one wants
to say something which cannot be said, so we make a poem where one
can feel what is meant. You see it, and you know it without being able to
formulate it." The East German playwright Heiner Miller once said that
in Bausch's theater "the image is a thorn in our eye" (I982:Io3). Her
works are too uncompromising to let themselves be easily domesticated,
and there are perhaps no answers to the reality of experience depicted in
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them. If anything, the Wuppertal dancers show us what it means to keep

questioning beyond the point where repetitions appear merely exhausting
and deadly, or perhapsjust normal.
It is also possible, of course, that Bausch's continuing performances of
human self-degradation and self-oppression will reach a point of no return, where the tenderness and the hope for love are no longer recognizable. Bausch's newest piece, On the Mountaina Cry WasHeard, provoked
deep distress among BAM audiences, since even those who admire her
work felt numbed by the bleak, destructive images of the group scenes.
The piece refers us back to the menacing atmosphere of Rite of Spring,
whose stage is also covered by a deep layer of earth; the dancers seem lost
in this vast and empty landscape. There are quiet moments when individuals or couples cry out for help and affection and when their vulnerability
becomes a positive force. But these moments of longing are overwhelmed by unconditional violence. In one scene, repeated several times
to the blaring sound of the triumphal march from Mendelssohn's Athalie,
two groups of men chase Helena Pikon and Francis Viet across the dark
stage, capture them, and brutally force them to kiss each other. Undoubtedly, there is something deeply disconcerting about these images of fatal
enclosure and social pressure. The unloving couple, forced to love each
other, cannot escape. But they continue to struggle and to resist.
I am interested in the astounding ironies of this image, not only because they reveal an implicit alternative to the radical historical pessimism
and the collapse of individualism depicted in Heiner Mfiller's plays but
also because they must be seen with the German sensitivity toward historical determinations in mind. If some American critics prefer to miss
the ironies and find themselves appalled at the vision of painfully distorted bodies and victimized individuals, it may be that the general optimism
(the "official" image) in this body-building and aerobics culture has
7. Arien (1979): The

"hippopotamus"watcheson
as Lutz Forstercarriesthe
lifelessBeatriceLibonati
acrossthe waters. (Photo by
Ulli Weiss)
94 Pina Bausch
8. On The Mountain A
Cry Was Heard (1984):
The hysteriaof selfoppressionand compulsive
aggressionis shown as the
darkundersideof human
existence.(Photo by Arici &
Smith)
lockedup any perceptionof irony in a heightenedstateof repressionthat

feeds a mindlessconsumerismand an automaticdreamof endlesssurvival. Imagesof pain or fear of death disturbthe Americanlandscape;they
don't accommodatethe rhetoricof beauty,power, and speedin a technological Disneyland.Imagesof violence are acceptablein films and MTV,
where they can be made to look beautiful.As for the dance:why should
anyonewant to see distortedand victimizedbodies that don't even dance
most of the time?
Althoughit may not have been consciouslyplanned,the Fall 1985programof the BAM Next Wavefestivalturnedout to be the site of a vociferous encounterbetween proponentsof Germantanztheaterand American postmoderndance. Both traditionsshare common roots but have
gone in differentdirections.Halfway throughthe festivalit was already
clearthat New York audienceshad the uniquechanceto see the leading
choreographersof the currentGermantanztheatermovement (Bausch,
ReinhildHoffmann, SusanneLinke) side by side with some post-CunninghamAmericanchoreographers(LauraDean, Nina Wiener,Margaret
Jenkins).
Cunningham'sinfluencehas been so strong in the United States that
today'spostmoderndancecan only be understoodin relationto his programmaticrejectionof Graham-stylemoderndancewith its emphasison
emotion, theatricaldecorandcostumes,character,dramaticphrasing,and
narrative.Even those familiarwith contemporarydancemust have been
struck,however, by the amountof frustratedangerventedupon tanztheater. At a symposium co-sponsoredby BAM and Goethe House New
York on 8 November 1985, directly after the opening nights of Hoff-
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9. Callas(1983):Reinhild
Bremen
Hoffinann's
Tanztheater
looksintothe
mirrors
reflecting
offashions
andartisticcareers.(Photo
by KlausLeFebvre)
mann's Callas (1983) and Wiener's In Closed Time (1985), some critics
objected to what they felt was the self-indulgence of Bausch's long and
repetitive performances and her wallowing in pain and angst. (See pp.
46-56 for an edited transcript of the symposium.)
Hoffmann and Wiener were present at this intercultural event, and both
looked exhausted after hours of heated discussion about the respective
merits of the formal, movement-oriented concerns of American postmodern dance and the concrete emotional and social content expressed in the
German works. The problem of cultural perceptions of the relationship
between form and content remained a stumbling block, but the symposium made it clear that our common vocabulary ("movement," "narrative," "motion," etc.) needs to be more carefully defined with regard to
the specific aesthetic, including its political dimension, that makes the
apparent violence in Bausch's works so objectionable to so many people
in the United States.
At the same time, such a clash of perceptions may also help redirect
attention to the easily forgotten roots of early modern dance shared by
both traditions and mediated by the highly influential work of American
dancers such as Isadora Duncan in Germany and later on by the teaching
of Rudolf von Laban and Kurt Jooss. The pupils of Jooss's Folkwang
School, including Bausch, Hoffmann, and Linke, are central to the revitalization of expressionist dance.
Seeing the BAM premieres of Wiener's In Closed Time or Laura Dean's
Sky Light (1982), Transformer(1985), and Impact(1985), one still notices
96 PinaBausch
the fundamentaldifferencebetween some Americanthinking about the
validity and beauty of movement qualitiesor rhythmicforms and these
Germanchoreographers'deliberateinsistenceon questioningthe conditions of social performancethemselves-those gender-identifiedroles and
behaviorsthat determineour relationshipto eachother and to our culture
at large.
Those roles and behaviors,so naturalin the United States, are not aland
ways beautiful. Hoffmann's Callas, not unlike Bausch'sKontakthof
Arien,dramatizesvariousimages of prostitution,self-oppression,anxiety,
and self-humiliationthat stand as realistic counterpartsto the popular
myths of beauty,happiness,and success.The realityof the fantasies,representedby daily routinesand ever-repeatedefforts to impressothers, is
exposed as a constrictingnetwork of internalizedsocial conventions. In
one scene, the dancersparadein front of huge mirrors,and before long,
the mirrorsare tied to their backs, and we see them carryingthe burden
of their self-images.
Likewise, Bausch's repetitivemasochisticrituals and the struggle for
love and recognitionthat her male and female dancersperformon each
other with aggressiveaffection can only be consideredoffensive to the
eye if one completelymisunderstandsthe impliedsocialcritique.In order
to see art as a form of culturalintervention,one must rememberthe
specific Germantheater, opera, and ballet traditionwhose classicshave
alwaysdominatedthe repertoriesof the state-subsidizedtheaters.It is this
culturalrepertory,with its social/politicalimplications,that the women
choreographers-thetrue heirs of Brecht'sepic theater-rebelled against
with the full rage of a generationof daughtersthat witnessedthe successful reconstructionof the old patriarchalregime, shortly afterthe horrors
of fascismhad arisenfrom Westerncivilization.
In view of this experienceone can perhapsbetterunderstandthe admittedly painful image in On the Mountaina Cry WasHeardof a woman
dancerkneelingdown, repeatedlyand patiently,to receivethe punishing
blows of her male oppressor.Jan Minarik'smenacingfigurestandsin for
the many fathersand lovers who are like childrenplaying with weapons
in orderto learnthe competitiverules of the game.
In this sense one can read the episodic dance sequencesin Callasthat
representthe various stages of a career-here embodied in the figure of
the famous opera singer. Through it one may learnthe belcantoof stardom and success,but only at the greatpersonalcost of losing all dignity.
The limitedrangeof "movement"in tanztheateris perhapsan apt expression of its anti-aestheticstance.WhenBauschexplainsthat she is "not so
much interestedin how people move but in what moves them," she is
also addressingclassicalballet, which disguises its repressivenesswith
beautifulacrobaticsand stunningspectacles.
Americanpostmoderndance is not perceivedto be strugglingagainst
an overbearingsystem of well-subsidizedballet and repertorytheater,as
is the case in Germany,where the majorityof the state theatershouse
ballet companies. There are only about Io tanztheatertroupes;half of
them are unaffiliated,so-called "free groups." The traditionsof modern
balletand moderndancein the United Statesevolved independentlyfrom
each other, and the emancipationof "pure dance" was achieved when
Cunningham'sgenerationfreed itself, not from the constraintsof any
structure,but from the heavy emotionaldramaof
government-subsidized
an older choreography.
Tanztheatercritics,of course, would considerthe term "emancipation"
paradoxicalin an Americancontext (cf. Schmidt1984:22).For them, the
PinaBausch 97
acrobatic,multi-mediapostmodernismof Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane's
Freedomof Information
(1984) or SecretPastures(1984), for example, can
a
indicate
only
regressioninto seductivespectaclesand "superficialattractions" (Servos1984:24).SuchBrechtiancriticismsmiss the point, however, becausethey do not graspthe differentways in which Americanreality is representedand representable.
At the same time, I do not doubt that the freedomof informationin
postmodern dance is yet another illusory freedom. After all, there is
of Americanabstract
somethingvery puzzlingaboutthe self-referentiality
dance, namely the apparentlyunperturbedself-confidencewith which it
pursues"solutionsto its formal problems"(Wiener1985) without ever
acknowledgingthe contradictionsthat lie in the assumptionthat danceis
not a socialpracticebut an art too beautifuland self-containedto engage,
for example, the issues of violence and repression.
The pure energy of the relentlessspinningin LauraDean's Sky Light,
or the spatialjuxtapositionsof Wiener'sdancersagainstthe huge plastic
"buildings"in In ClosedTime(designedfor the BAM stage by Miami's
leadingcommercialarchitecturefirm, Arquitectonica)could be interpreted as reflectionson the dehumanizingspeed and urbandensityof Americanlife hereand now, were it not thatthe spinning,or the muscleflexing
in front of geometricallyshapeddesign elements,appearhopelesslyarbitrary, equivocal, and unconsciousof its articulatedsocial content. The
refusalto deal with this content deprivesthese works of any emotionally
and intellectuallysignificantmeaning, and this is a limitationthat audiences may begin to realizeonce they have stopped worrying about the
un-Americanangst in Pina Bausch'stanztheaterworks.
References
Anna
Kisselgoff,
is ComingfromAbroad."The
"DancethatStartlesandChallenges
1985
NewYorkTimes,13October:HI, 14.
Lichtenstein,
Harvey
New York:Brooklyn
Introduction.
1985NextWaveFestival
Catalog.
1985
Academyof Music.
Miiller,Heiner
Berlin:
derFreiheit."
Rotwelsch.
"Blutist im Schuh,oderDasRditsel
1982
MerveVerlag.
Schmidt,
Jochen
"Erfahren,was Menschenbewegt:Pina Bauschund das neue
1984
andHerbertWinkels,
UlrikeHanraths
Tanztheater."
Tanzlegenden.
tende.
eds.Frankfurt:
Servos,Norbertand
Weigelt,Gert
1984
DanceTheateror TheArtof Traininga Goldfish.

PinaBauschWuppertal
Cologne:Ballet-Biihnen-Verlag.
Wiener,Nina
"Germanand AmericanModernDance:Yesterdayand Today"
1985
GoetheHouseNew York,8 November.
symposium.
JohannesBirringer,a foundingmember
of thePA] Institute
for TheatreCulat the Schoolof Arts andHumanitiesat the Universityof
ture,is in residence
Texas-Dallas. His newbookwill be Theatre,Theory, Postmodernism.

Pina Bausch in USA

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Pina Bausch: Dancing across Borders

Author(s): Johannes Birringer

Dancing Across Borders

3. The Seven Deadly Sins

posed, in other words, by re-imposing and re-hearsing the image of

Cry WasHeard (1984), the authoritative male voice-over is replaced by an

5. 1980 (1980): Showing

them. If anything, the Wuppertal dancers show us what it means to keep

7. Arien (1979): The

lockedup any perceptionof irony in a heightenedstateof repressionthat

DanceTheateror TheArtof Traininga Goldfish.

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