Dance History
Mr. Garfinkel
12/1/14
“Pina” Bausch Philippine, or “Pina”, Bausch created some of the most interesting and radical modern dance works of her time because they are based on human relations and how we interact with each other. Born in 1940, in Solingen, Germany, she was born into a family of business owners with her parents owning a connecting restaurant and hotel. She and her siblings worked for her parents at a very young age. In doing so, Pina would observe and watch the guests who came through learning how and why people do the fundamental things that they do and what drives them. As a young child she also danced in the Solingen Children’s Ballet and at age fourteen she began studying dance with Kurt Jooss …show more content…
She uses simple elements to create a pedestrian aesthetic. In her work Café Müller (1978), she uses many tables, chairs, and walls with doorways to resemble a cafe. In this work, she has one whole section of the dancers entering from one doorway, running full force into the wall across the “room” running into and knocking down every table and chair in their way. The mixture of pedestrian props and real movement creates the look and feeling she reaches for in most of her pieces. On the contrary, her version of Rite of Spring exemplifies the willingness to pull away from the obvious pedestrian cues and use underlying human based movement as opposed to new creation movement. In both pieces however, she uses simple walking phrases that make the dancers look like they came right off of the street and onto stage. The simple human movement sets her apart from many other Modern choreographers of her time. She learned this method of choreographing from Kurt Jooss who taught her that it’s okay to throw away the classical ideals and structure that Ballet gives us. We also know that Café Müller is based off of real life experience from her father’s restaurant and the passer-by’s that came through. Café Müller tells the story of these people passing through with each character based on a real person from Pina’s memory and what their story was from her childlike view. “In a Pina Bausch dance the …show more content…
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