Vollmond from Tanztheater Wuppertal, A Magnificent Opus that leaves us with the memory of one of the great figures of contemporary dance.
Vollmond from Tanztheater Wuppertal. Foto: Jochen Viehoff
What happens the night of a full moon! The world is transformed! A playful and totally liberating event that brought us back to the corporeal experiments of Pina Bausch’s earlier years. Such a wonderful relief this is!!
A huge rock looms up in the middle of the stage. A heavy volume that grounds the eyes , that grounds the dancers, that grounds the stark landscape providing a strange space for the dancers who eventually ( Act II), include that rock in their choreography as they slide and slip down its slopes. Or they climb over it and slither around its sides. It is almost alive even though that great volume of unmovable matter holds our attention because it shrinks the dancers, it invigorates the movements, it slurps up the bodies in a tiny stream that appears to be drawn along underneath that rocky mass.
Bausch has recreated a new universe of bodies that, as her earlier work always did, imposing normal gestures but deconstructing the gracefulness of human corporeal expression to give it all new meaning. She uses other forms of dance , she disrupts everyday moves disarticulates the dancers, shifts in emotion and their impact on lther bodies. The results are unexpected, beautiful and even joyous but this time the playful, the “ludique” a great joy of living, dominates . The figures do not mistreat each other the way they used to. They launch themselves into moments of harmonious affection, playful longings, Instinctual relationships that inspire harsh gestures ( a slap, a twist, a push) but nothing more. Individual women turn to the audience and hiss commonplace challenges at them, always with a slight tilt of the head, a face harbouring naughty gestures or tricky glances.