{"id":767,"date":"2014-02-17T17:27:49","date_gmt":"2014-02-17T17:27:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=767"},"modified":"2020-04-20T07:47:19","modified_gmt":"2020-04-20T06:47:19","slug":"still-walking-still-talking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2014\/02\/still-walking-still-talking.html","title":{"rendered":"Still walking. Still talking"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"fc-1980-company-legs_1000\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u2019s nearer death, as are we all.<\/p>\n

These merry reflections are inspired by Pina Bausch\u2019s 1980<\/i><\/a>, performed by the sublime Tanztheater Wuppertal. This was the work that turned a whole generation of British theatregoers into Pinaholics <\/a>when it first visited London, nearly new, in 1982. It was the tanztheater gateway drug that blew the minds of its audience and, judging by the sold out theatre for the show\u2019s return, 32 years on, has jacked synapses and blissfully polluted imaginations all over again.<\/p>\n

Equally mind blowing is the fact that four of the original dancers are still in the cast. Previous generations of actors might stick to a celebrated role throughout their career (34 years also separated David Garrick<\/a>\u2019s first and last Hamlet), but it\u2019s rare for dancers to achieve such a span. Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev, defying the limitations of their charismatic bodies, were exceptions. Unless body and spirit (or financial desperation and sheer refusal to acknowledge time) intervene, most dancers will politely leave the stage around 40.<\/p>\n

\"1980<\/a>

1980 in 1982.. the original cast. Photo: William Yang<\/p><\/div>\n

The Wuppertal troupe don\u2019t only defy time \u2013 they embrace it. Did Bausch realise how much her works would accrue meaning as her dancers aged? In 1980<\/i> \u2013 a work about grief and loss and childhood and play \u2013 there\u2019s a profound delight to watching performers deep in middle age behaving simultaneously like crones and toddlers. I touched on this in a short Sunday Times<\/a> review, but the impression has sharpened since my first viewing last week (I went back for a second helping this weekend. Of course I did).<\/p>\n

The original cast still gleam on YouTube<\/a>. A new generation fills most roles, shimmies into the signature evening gowns (they remind us that the texture of confessional improvisation is carefully constructed \u2013 these are roles, not therapy outtakes). But it\u2019s still a shock to see the younger Mechthild Grossman like a palimpsest over her magnetic present performance \u2013 her husky voice now dropping like a lift in freefall, her roguish disenchantment thoroughly embedded. Or Lutz F\u00f6rster, the company\u2019s newly appointed artistic director, who was tall and elegant and is now tall, elegant and slightly cadaverous. He leads by example, stripping naked and waggling his feet like an infant, his flesh as vulnerable as ever, but with the vulnerability of age.<\/p>\n

Most of the dancers are younger, newer, but in Wuppertal these are relative terms. Even the newest recruits seem to have old souls, while the company\u2019s veterans grow more delightedly childish by the year.<\/p>\n

Why does this matter? Because the decade-deep work of time is something that performance rarely captures. We see Leontes in The Winter\u2019s Tale<\/i> as a fretful husk 16 years after his titanic jealousy pulled down his marriage and his sanity. F\u00f6rster\u2019s sardonic tribute to a wooden chair recalls The Cherry Orchard<\/i>, where Mme Ranyevskaya returns to the nursery of her childhood home, and we see that she has never truly left. But Bausch\u2019s dancers suggest the children and adults they were, are and will be. Our bodies may be frailly adult. Our problems may be grindingly grown up. Our spirits may still skew young and foolish \u2013 and like the figures in 1980<\/em>, we may still not know how to say goodbye.<\/p>\n

See\u00a0 photos<\/a> of the current cast (including the dancers showing some leg, top) <\/em>by Foteini Christofilopoulou for Dance Tabs<\/span><\/p>\n

Follow David on Twitter: @mrdavidjays <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Breaking news: death is getting closer. Pina Bausch’s sublime 1980 shows our inner child and outer crone, together at last.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,42],"class_list":{"0":"post-767","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-dance","9":"tag-pina-bausch","10":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2021,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions\/2021"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}