How much should we talk about history when we talk about Pina Bausch? Audiences respond to the late choreographer's elemental themes, but Bausch’s angst was not only existential, but also historic. Sexual politics were an abiding theme in her work, and the pummelling conflict between men and women is the livid matter of much of her dance. But it also figures much more than this – and the 1984 … [Read more...]
Nobody’s victims
The cruellest thing you can do to a performer is refuse to look at them. You might boo, heckle, catcall. Stamp your feet and throw a punch, Rite of Spring style. Raise an eyebrow and tut (aka the Surrey snub). Each of these may sting, but they at least engage. Crueller by far is to decline to step foot in the theatre. If a performance isn’t seen, does it exist? Twenty years ago, a … [Read more...]
Speak, memory
How do you imagine your memory? As a rheumatic showgirl going through her old paces; a disembodied mouth yabbering its hoard; a frolicsome performance troupe or a whirring tape machine, speaking into the void? Memory is the story the mind tells itself about itself, the unreliable biography that is all we’ve got. We build it up and then it starts to fall through our fingers. But how do you put … [Read more...]
Shouldn’t the swan be breathing?
There’s nothing like holding a gun to a swan to ruffle a balletgoer’s feathers. It’s hardly on the scale of Black Swan, but at Dance Gazette, the Royal Academy of Dance magazine, we caused a kerfuffle with ‘Keep, Rescue, Retire’ – a feature that invited leading international artistic directors to consider the state of the ballet repertoire. They all agreed it was too narrow – the victim of patchy … [Read more...]
Still walking. Still talking
We all grow older. Since Performance Monkey last tottered towards the keyboard, his paws have grown sclerotic, his plush has rubbed off, he displays the rusty effect of winter and rough weather. He’s nearer death, as are we all. These merry reflections are inspired by Pina Bausch’s 1980, performed by the sublime Tanztheater Wuppertal. This was the work that turned a whole generation of British … [Read more...]