Table of Contents

Section 1: The theorists, the selected aspects theory and the context……………………….….p. 1

Philippina “Pina” Bausch


Life of Pina Bausch

Styles of Pina Bausch Tanztheatre
Pina Bausch’s Approach in Theatre
Common Themes
Common Stlysitic aspects

Section 2: Practical explorations, performance and production intentions and development of the
performance and production of the solo theatre piece…………………………………….,.…p. 5

Theme

Practical Exploration
Surreal Design
Feedback from a peer mentor
Gestures
Feedback from a teacher
Target audience and Intended effects

Section 3: Evaluation of the solo theatre piece and the implication this has on my work in theatre…p. 8


Evaluation of my solo theatre piece

Personal reflections
Section 1: The theorists, the selected aspects theory and the context

Philippina “Pina” Bausch

Philippina "Pina" Bausch lived her life as a modern dance performer,

choreographer, dance teacher and ballet director. She is most well known for
her innovative choreography where “rules of style and presentation were
bulldozed by her imperatives of emotional and psychological expression
(Tanztheater Wuppertal, The Guardian)” My personal interest in dance and
physical movements led me to explore Tanztheatre (dance theatre) and to
choose Pina Bausch as the theatre practitioner and theorist I wanted to explore.

Life of Pina Bausch Image 1: Pina Bausch

Pina Bausch was born in Solingen, Germany, in 27 July 1940. Her inborn interest in dance was shown from
childhood, performing impromptu dances in her parents’ restaurant. After ballet classes in her early life, she
entered Folkwang school at 14. She learned expressionist dance and the concept of Ausdruckstanz from Kurt
Jooss. Bausch continued to learn ballet and modern dance in New York’s Julliard School. She studied with
Antony Tudour, a choreographer from England, and performed with a wide range of dance companies,
including the Metropolitan Opera Ballet.

In 1962, Pina Bausch returned to Essen, Germany. Starting as a founder member of Jooss’s new Folkwang
Ballet, she became a choreographer of the company in 1967. In 1969, she took over the leading position of
Jooss. After, the Wuppertal Opera Ballet offered her the directorship in 1973, and she worked for the
company until she died in 30 June 2009 (Roy, Sanjoy).

She is described as having “completely revamped the Wuppertal into a vehicle for her own searing style of
Tanztheatre.”After her death, Pina Bausch Foundation was established by her son Rolf Salomon T. The
foundation aims at “keeping her artistic legacy alive and carrying it on into the future (Pina Bausch
Foundation). Her new style of German Tanztheatre influenced many performers, including David Bowie.

Styles of Pina Bausch’s Tanztheatre

According to Step-by-step Guide to Dance: Pina Bausch, the works of Pina Bausch can be divided into two
phases: conventional and experimental. Her earliest works kept the traditional choreographic structure of a
development and denouement. Movements were used as the principle medium, with less text, such as The
Rite of Spring performed in 1975. Later, her works changed as she chose to abandon the structure. Pina
Bausch’s distinctive dance theatre style began to develop, with “loose, unpredictable montages of scenes,
strung together by free association (Roy, Sanjoy).” She began to incorporate different mediums of arts other
than movements, along with the personal life experiences of the performers. For example, Bluebeard
performed in 1977 includes other art forms in it such as music, set and prop design and costume as integral
production elements.
Pina Bausch’s Approach in Theatre

To Pina Bausch, performance was about “expressing feelings” (Top 13 quotes by Pina Bausch) She tried to
understand and show emotions that cannot be expressed with words through theatre. Intuitive movements of
body can show feelings without the filtration of logic. She emphasised the importance of feelings from heart,
saying that “everything must come from heart, must be lived. (Top 13 quotes by Pina Bausch)” Her approach
to theatre connects to my personal belief in artistic integrity. For me, creation of arts is about following
intuition. Deep emotions can be understood and released as I put it in the form of arts. I believe that it is the
real power of all arts, including theatre.

Pina Bausch valued life inside the performance over technique. Her works started with “contemporary life —
not existing forms of dance.” (Bausch 1989: 91) The motives of her movements were mostly in the life of
people, including Bausch herself. “They are all pearls. Each of the dancers is, in a different way,
important…. It’s not just doing choreography, but it’s being aware of their feelings we all have and what we
are knowing. (Stanford, German Choregrapher Pina Bausch in Rehearsal). Her personal experiences from
her life also became rich a mine of sources for her creative process. She put memories of experiences on
stage.

“When I look back on my childhood, my youth, my period as a student and my time as a dancer
and choreographer – then I see pictures. They are full of sounds, full of aroma. And of course
full of people who have been and are part of my life. These picture memories from the past keep
coming back and searching for a place. Much of what I experienced as a child takes place again
much later on the stage.”
- Speech held by Pina Bausch on the occasion of the Kyoto Prize award ceremony in 2007.

Common Themes

“Bausch's mature style has been the absence of a sustainable plot, or conventional senses of progression, or
revelation of characters (Stanford Presidential lecture).” Within the absence of a sustainable plot, there are
some recurrent themes in her works, often with “element of tragedy brewing in the movement. (Guardian,
2010)” She centres her works around the ideas of the frailty of human beings. In many of her works, the
brutal and pitiful humans are portrayed through relationships between individuals. People suffer from
“blind force of desire” (Guardian, 2010) with the “veneer of normality.” (Guardian, 2010) The
relationships shown in her performances are often built between men and women. For example, in Café
Müller in 1978, confused women and men grasp, hug and pass each other awkwardly.

Image 2: Cafe Muller— Image 3: Como el musguito—

A woman kissing a main People tied up with ropes
 Selected Stylistic Aspects

Theme
As I explored the common themes of Pina Bausch’s works, I chose to centre my performance around the idea
of relationships. Like Pina Bausch’s performances, I focused on the flow of emotions based on intuition,
rather than clear narrative and plot. Several episodic moments of feelings were presented with movements,
set design and some texts.

Surreal Design

The set designs of Bausch’s works often build surreal atmospheres in the performances. She brings in the
objects from the outside world onto the stage, including natural elements.

“The elements are and always have been central in her creations and she has used fire, air and
of course, water, present in many ballets. “

—Pina Bausch Interview by Patricia Boccadoro, Paris, October 16, 2007


Image 4: Carnation — a field of flowers on Image 5: Vollmond — huge rocks and water on stage
stage

Image 6: Viktor— huge ramparts of earth on Image 7: Bluebeard — bleak screes of dead
stage floor leaves on stage floor
Gestures
In the work of Pina Bausch, multilayered gestures are often performed simultaneously (Presidential Lectures:
Pina Bausch - Life). Bausch repeats gestures in order to alienate the movements. The audience is forced to
see the same gesture many times, from varying perspectives. Pina Bausch stated, “[r]epetition is not
repetition ... The same action makes you feel something completely different by the end” The repeated
gestures are transformed in time and space, and the relationships between the performers change as the
gestures are repeated.

“Bausch's gift was to convey deep, emotional feeling without cliché or a clear narrative. Her
choreography is rooted in the ordinary value of gesture—the way people reach or clutch or walk
or talk—which lends an evocative quality to the dancing.”
Worldly Gestures." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 16 June 2012.

Image 8: The man I love — lists of hand and Image 9: Cafe Muller— reaching hands
arm gestures, standing still
Section 2: Practical explorations, performance and production intentions and
development of the performance and production of the solo theatre piece

Theme

“Bausch insists that all she does is ask questions, and watch.” (Climenhaga, Pina Bsuch p. 44) She
emphasises the importance of the process of questioning and finding answers to the questions as she
develops her piece.

I ask so many questions during the work, but I can’t think of a single one at the moment. The
dancers need to have faith to answer what they feel - within the group, in front of everybody.
(Bausch, 2004a, my translation 5-6)

Like Pina Bausch, I also began to devise my performance by asking questions regarding the thematic idea of
relationships. I asked myself two big questions— a. Why do people want to make relationships with others?
b. What kinds of relationships are there, and what emotions do people experience in those relationships?—
and tried to find answers by creating a brainstorming sheet.


Why do people want to make What kinds of relationships are there, and what emotions
relationships with others? do people experience in those relationships?

Image 10: Brainstorming from

drama journal, author’s own
I then tried to connect the fragmented ideas into a theme. Considering the “element of tragedy brewing in the
movement (Guardian, 2010)” in Pina Bausch’s works, I chose to portray how people are trapped in
relationships. This is connected to the answers that I produced from the questions above; my answer to the
question “why do people want to make relationships with others?” was “to avoid solitude / to be part of the
society and feel safe within the community.” I felt that people are essentially trapped in the communities that
they belong to, and in the relationships that they have made in the past, because of the desire to meet the
expectations of others and responsibilities in relationships, people are not completely free to make decisions
of their own.

Practical Exploration

Surreal Design
Inspired by Pina Bausch’s work, I wanted to create a surreal set with a stage floor covered with objects like
flowers, leaves and water. I decided to cover the stage with white feathers, as the delicacy of feathers and
their movement resemble the frailty of human relationships. In addition, I located one mannequin body that
represents the protagonist (me) on upstage centre and two mannequin heads on downstage right and
downstage left. I initially wanted to explore the relationships through physical connections to other
performers, inspired by Cafe Muller. However, since I was the only performer in this solo theatre piece, I
chose to use mannequins in the performance to indicate other people.

Feedback from a peer mentor

Locations of both the feathers and the mannequins reflect the feedback received from the peer mentors. I
initially distributed the feathers all across the stage. However, a peer mentor advised me to pile up more
feathers on one side of the stage so that I can grab more of them in a scene where I scatter them in the air.
Considering the feedback, I put more feathers stage right, where the choreography happens.

In addition, there were three body mannequins and two head mannequins in the beginning of the devising
process. I put more mannequins than what I needed to represent a batch of people in the world. However,
the peer mentor pointed out that there are too many mannequins which were not related to the
performance, and they interfere with the paths of movements. From the suggestion, I decided to remove
the two body mannequins that I do not interact with in the performance.

Gestures
I started off by exploring the use of mannequins, and tried to reflect different types of relationships with the
mannequins. I explored different emotional responses of relationships, such as love, hurt, and lonesomeness.
I also developed the vague emotional responses to a more precise feelings in a specific situations, such as
craving for love of others, wondering in the crowd alone, and being violently pushed around. Through this
exploration, I naturally found some gestures, which is also a common stylistic aspect of Pina Bausch’s work.

Physical gestures: Salute, hug and kiss

Image 11: Salute, author’s own Image 12: Hug, author’s own Image 13: Kiss, author’s own
The gestures show the desire to connect to others. As I explored the gestures on the mannequins, I repeated
them, changing in tempo. Repeating the gestures naturally led me to the development of the relationships.
Expression of the ardent hope escalated through repetition, and the level of sorrow was also heightened with
the realisation of rejection.

Facial gesture: Smile

In order to express the feelings inside the thematic ideas, I developed an emotional journey of a person who
is in a desperate search for connection which is not attainable. Through the performance, the idealisations on
relationships turn into disappointment through indifference. The pain is suppressed by the attempt to ‘smile.’
The smile is a metaphor of the pretend presentation of happiness, which is forced by the social expectations.
I chose this gesture based on my personal experience of being told to smile in front of others. This is
connected to Pina Bausch’s devising method which lies heavily on the performers’ personal experiences.

“…for Bausch the use of movement as emotive gesture and as carrier of an individual’s
experience is expressed physically and through the body of her dancers.” (B.C. Ceccoli, 2012)

Feedback from a teacher

I used texts with the facial gesture of smiling, such as “smile”, “come on, look at them.”, “hi, good
afternoon.” The texts were presented in the middle of the performance. I received feedback from my
theatre teacher to repeat the text in the beginning of the performance, facing the audience. Interacting
with the audience in the opening scene has an effect of building up a different audience-actor relationship.
Along with the repetition of the text, I practiced facing the audience more, rather than looking at sideways
in order to strengthen the connection to the audience.

Intended effects for my target audience

My performance is about humans trapped in the structure of society and

relationships. Thus, I chose to title this performance Saram, meaning human
in Korean. There are two words that means human in Korean— Saram and
Ingan. While Ingan is used to describe a biological human, Saram is used to
describe a human in a society. I thought the word Saram conveys a specific
meaning that the English word human cannot. I chose to use my mother
tongue to title this performance inspired by how Pina Bausch titled Nelken in
German.

Because of the metaphysical thoughts and intense emotions— dreary,

miserable and wretched— in my solo theatre piece, I made an age limit in
my performance. I gathered the audiences by putting up posters around
school, with a notice “Recommended for audiences aged 15 and
older.” (Image 14)
Image 14: Poster, author’s own
The main intention of this performance was to express and share my
emotions. While there are certain feelings that I would like to express, I
wanted the audience to be open to experience different emotions and imagine different stories from my
performance. It is connected to Pina Bausch’s philosophy on audience interaction; “[i]f the audience are open
to experience or feel things, I think there is the possibility of another kind of space, the time, the music and
personalities.” (Bausch 1922: 15)
Section 3: Evaluation of the solo theatre piece and the implication this has on my
work in theatre

Evaluation of my solo theatre piece

In this solo theatre piece, I was able to focus solely on things that I wanted to communicate, unlike other
collaborative works. I wanted to use this opportunity to try a different style of theatre, with fewer restrictions
regarding the target audience and intended effects on them. As Pina Bausch said, I wanted to “express
something that I couldn’t express with words at all. Something I have to say urgently, but not verbally. These
are feelings, or questions, I never have an answer.” (Bausch, 2004a, my translation:9) My solo theatre piece
was based on feelings. Through the movement, text, set design, light and music, I expressed my emotions
based on the theme of ‘relationships’. The intention of this performance was to release and share those
emotions with the audience.

“I try to feel what I feel. I am the audience. Me alone. There is nobody else. I don’t even know
who will come to the theatre — people I don’t know anything about. For whom should I make
this piece? I can only start from myself.” (Interview with Ruth Berghaus, Berlin, May 29, 1987)

Due to the stylistic aspect of Pina Bausch’s work without a clear narrative or plot, this performance included
metaphoric set design, props and choreography which could carry different interpretations. In order to test
the efficiency of such metaphors, I had a talkback session with the audience after the performance. After the
talkback session, I found out that I actually achieved more than my intended purpose. Initially, I was opened
to different audience interpretations, and did not expect them to understand my original feelings behind the
performance. However, the audience felt those emotions much deeper than I expected. One of the audience
members said “I cannot describe these overwhelming feelings with words. It is emotionally demanding and
fascinating.” This made me think that I achieved my intention to “express something that I couldn’t express
with words at all.” (Bausch, 2004a, my translation:9)

When I asked them to think about the moments that they liked, they talked about the moments with repetitive
gestures, such as the moment when I was I falling over, trying to hug or kiss the mannequins. It showed the
use of repeated gesture had an emotional impact on the audience, conveying “a sense of longing, trying to
attain something unattainable” with the “contrast of passion and rejection” as one of the audience member
commented. The facial gesture of smiling was also mentioned by the audience as moments that they liked the
most.

The surreal design also worked effectively. When I asked about the themes of this performance, the audience
members frequently referred to the set and prop design to support their opinions on the themes. They thought
deeply about the meanings of the body mannequin, head mannequins, ropes, fences and feathers. They
mentioned that the body mannequin represented me and the two heads represent the relationships that I
make. They understood that the fences and ropes meant the social expectations that trap and strangle me.

Some even suggested new interpretations for the props, saying “[o]ne of the head mannequin is white
coloured, while the other head mannequin is skin—coloured. I think it indicates your desire to reach
something more humane than artificial.” This was a ‘happy accident’, as I did not intend to colour one of the
mannequin heads to convey such message. Through this, I was able to understand Pina Bausch saying “[i]f
the audience are open to experience or feel things, I think there is the possibility of another kind of space, the
time, the music and personalities.” The audience members’ own life experiences added up a layer of
interpretation on the abstraction that I suggested. I really appreciated the audience actively participating in
feeling the performance in their own unique ways.
Personal reflection

This solo theatre piece was the most personal process that I have ever experienced. According to Ceccoli,
“[i]t is her dancers as subjects, telling their own stories and experiences that communicate meaning and
move us to our own.” (B.C. Cecile, 2012) I, also, used my own stories and experiences as subjects. I have
made different relationships with others. I have become parts of different communities. As a daughter of my
parents, as a student, as a friend and as a sister, I sometimes felt that I was trapped by such relationships
which suggest me a certain life path that I have to follow. The responsibilities and expectations in those
relationships influenced my choices that I have made so far. This personal experience was reflected on the
process of developing the thematic idea of people being trapped in relationships.

Expressing my emotions based on my own experience required courage. I worried about people thinking that
such emotions were unacceptable and dangerous. As I created this solo theatre piece, I was encouraged by
Pina Bausch’s quote, that“It is not a private thing; there are certain feelings that belong to all of us. If your
are honest, it’s not private, because we all know these feelings. We all have the same desires; we all are
scared. There are differences — the flavour is different. But we are all together and it is the
richness.” (Bausch 1999: 11A) Because I believe in the power of arts, I decided to use this performance as
an outlet which I could release my emotions and gain a sense of catharsis. After the performance, I was
surprised to see that the audience understood, and tried to understand all the abstractions in the performance.

“I am dealing with something that we all sense, that occupies all of us in a similar language. I
am the audience as well. And when I see, I feel something. I can only come from my own
instinct. When I trust my feeling, I believe it’s not only mine. I share it with others.”
(Bausch, 2004a, my translation:9)

This course has given me some vital lessons about communicating and understanding feelings and emotions.
Through the devising process, performance and the interaction with the audience, I learned the importance of
trusting my own feelings, sharing them through dance, text and theatre. It deepened my interest in theatre,
allowing me to explore and find out my theatrical taste. This experience of creating a solo theatre piece will
be a stepping stone for my future studies in theatre.