An annual Sadler’s Wells Valentine’s gift from Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, now with added Terrain Boris Charmatz, and the run seems to be sold out, though, as always, there are returns. Pina’s generation is out in force, but I wonder what the younger core in the audience makes of the legend and her recurring tropes.
Pina (1940–2009) reflected the Zeitgeist of her post WW2 generation—has anything changed? It seems not—her themes are timeless. Created in 1982, Nelken (Carnations), of the famous ‘Nelken Line’, is about joy and the search for love at the foot of the Berlin Wall. Beauty and love side by side with terror and hate—it is ever thus.
It hasn't dated at all. What has changed is the company cast. And naturally, I miss the familiar old, their personalities, which were larger than life. They are big shoes to fill, but fill them they must to continue her legacy. Aida Vainieri of the old troupe injects a frisson of remembrance. And her role brings that Soviet era back to me.
Sitting on a chair (there are lots of chairs) facing away from the audience, Vainieri trembles, as a table is carried closer and closer to her with four sinister men in black slamming their bodies aggressively against it. We get it. It’s at the border crossing. She has to empty her bags—what Western goodies is she bringing into the East? I remember how duty-free large packs of Marlboro cigarettes were useful as sweeteners… she has those and more.
Two tall towers stand either side. These four stuntmen climb them and then fall into the cardboard boxes they have created as safety nets. They stand either side of the stage with German shepherd dogs on leashes. They are not the only security guards, I might add—Sadler’s Wells has them on the doors and at the front of the stage. Similar times… And yet, there is so much beauty.
Eight thousand carnations bloom, some twenty dancers in frocks, men in ill-fitting ones, women in couture (by the late Marion Cito 1938–2023), frolic like children and happy bunnies. They dance on top of tables and hide under them—definitely a metaphor. We are all children whatever our age?
There seems to be a controller, though, and a man (Reginald Lefevre) signing to Gershwin’s “The Man I Love”. Are we manipulated whichever side of the wall we are on? Love and fear; slaps followed by kisses. A man chops onions. Men come and rub their faces in them.
Childish anarchy and chaos; obduracy and control… The passport controller asks not only for passports but also for the man to wear a suit and then become a goat, a dog, a frog—with sound... It’s funny yet not funny. It gives me the shivers.
But there is much laugh-out-loud comedy, too. How else could you bear it without satire? The dancers speak to us intimately—there is never a fourth wall in Pina’s dance theatre—try to make us complicit. I am always amazed that no one refuses to be led out of the auditorium by a charming dancer. How compliant we are. Asked to stand up and go through the hand dance routine, the audience loves it, stage-managed as it is into a standing ovation.
Love is what we send across the footlights at these dancers, who one by one end the show, arms in fifth position, by telling what led them to dance. Of different shapes and sizes, many of their reasons are a hoot... are they true?
Peter Pabst’s (1944–) set designs are art installations in themselves, both conceptual and stunningly beautiful. He has been designing for the company for over twenty-five years. I’ve seen over twenty Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch productions and he is indivisible from Pina’s vision.
Music was also always chosen very carefully by Pina and musical collaborator, the late Matthias Burkert (1953–2022): Nelken gets Gershwin, Louis Armstrong, Sophie Tucker, Quincy Jones, Schubert and more. Jazz a hit in post-war Germany, but was it banned in the eastern section when the wall went up? I believe it was.
There’s meaning in everything she did, not undertaken lightly—the dancers were put through an emotional and intellectual mill. They still are, as the programme notes tell us. The questions remind me of drama classes. That’s why we get such commitment and intensity. "Pray” and "tickle” simultaneously are one of the commands.
If you’ve never seen Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, you must; for one thing, Nelken is not long as her pieces often are. It is under two hours with no interval. It is not my favourite, but one is grateful for anything from Wuppertal.
And at least you will know the hand gestures for the four seasons, which constitute the Nelken Line. And how to survive an avalanche—spit and see which way the spit falls… and follow that line… And I’ve told you only the tip of the enigmatic iceberg. “A complete waste of time” is repeated—was / is Pina toying with us… of course.