Bausch, Pina (b Solingen, 27 July 1940). German dancer, choreographer, and company director. One of the most influential avant-garde artists on the European dance scene. She began her dance studies at the age of 14 with Kurt Jooss at the Folkwang School in Essen. Further studies at the Juilliard School of Music in New York (1960-1), with Antony Tudor. In 1961-2 she danced with the New American Ballet at the Metropolitan Opera, a company then directed by Tudor. In 1962 she returned to Germany to work as a soloist with Jooss’s Folkwang Ballet. She began choreographing in 1968. When Jooss retired in 1969 she became company director. In 1973 she founded Tanztheater Wuppertal, in Germany’s industrial Ruhr Valley. Her first work as director of Tanztheater Wuppertal was Fritz (mus. Wolfgang Hufschmidt, 1974). Her breakthrough came in 1975 with her landmark staging of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring; in it, she covered the stage with wet earth. Her 1976 production of The Seven Deadly Sins confirmed… read more
Bausch, Pina (b Solingen, 27 July 1940). German dancer, choreographer, and company director. One of the most influential avant-garde artists on the European dance scene. She began her dance studies at the age of 14 with Kurt Jooss at the Folkwang School in Essen. Further studies at the Juilliard School of Music in New York (1960-1), with Antony Tudor. In 1961-2 she danced with the New American Ballet at the Metropolitan Opera, a company then directed by Tudor. In 1962 she returned to Germany to work as a soloist with Jooss’s Folkwang Ballet. She began choreographing in 1968. When Jooss retired in 1969 she became company director. In 1973 she founded Tanztheater Wuppertal, in Germany’s industrial Ruhr Valley. Her first work as director of Tanztheater Wuppertal was Fritz (mus. Wolfgang Hufschmidt, 1974). Her breakthrough came in 1975 with her landmark staging of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring; in it, she covered the stage with wet earth. Her 1976 production of The Seven Deadly Sins confirmed her move away from dance conventions and into the world of dance-theatre. From her base in Wuppertal she has built an international reputation as the leading exponent of European dance-theatre.
A natural heir to the German expressionist dance tradition called Ausdruckstanz, her productions stress ideas—usually feelings of alienation, anguish, frustration, and cruelty—rather than the elaboration of pure movement. As Bausch herself has said, she is ‘not interested in how people move, but in what moves them’. Her productions usually avoid a linear narrative logic; speech, props, and costumes play a large role. They are masterpieces of theatrical imagination, if not choreographic invention. In Arien she covered the stage with water; in Viktor she placed the action inside a huge earthwork grave; in Nelken she covered the stage with thousands of carnations. A list of her productions includes In the Wind of Time (1969), Actions for Dancers (1971), Tannhäuser-Bacchanale (1972), Fritz (1974), Iphigenia in Tauris (1974), Orpheus and Eurydice (1975), The Rite of Spring (1975), The Seven Deadly Sins (mus. Weill, 1976), Bluebeard (1977), Cafe Müller (1978), Kontakthof (1978), Arien (1979), Legend of Chastity (1979), Bandoneon (1980), Walzer (1982), Nelken (1982), On the Mountain a Cry Was Heard (1984), Two Cigarettes in the Dark (1985), Viktor (1986), Palermo, Palermo (1989), A Dreamplay (1994), Danzon (1995), Only You (1996), Masurca Fogo (1998), and Agua (2001). In 1982 she collaborated with the film-maker Fellini on And the Ship Sails On. She subsequently made her own film, The Lament of the Empress. In 1997 she re-staged her Rite of Spring for the Paris Opera Ballet. —Dictionary of Dance
