“A work of art is not just the art object, the painting,
the performance, the book, but also what that thing does
with and in the minds, imagination and memory of the
watching audience. Our ambitions for young audiences should
be for them to be active and empowered audiences."
Matthew Reason – Senior Lecture in Theatre
York St John University
resource Pack
café muller / the rite of spring
Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch
Germany
Suggested Curriculum Links:
Year 9-13 (Levels 4-8)
Subject
NCEA Achievement Standards
Achievement Objectives
Dance
1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 2.7, 2.8, 3.7
L4-UC, PK, DI, CI/L5,6&7-UC, CI/L8-CI
Drama
1.3, 1.7, 2.7, 3.5, 3.7
L4,5&6-UC,CI/L7-UC/L8-UC,CI
(arts subject only)
festival.co.nz/schoolfest
Image: ludovica bastianini
Contents
 Openings stuff
 The Company and The Shows
o Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch
o Pina – An Inspiration
o The Shows
 Meet Pina Bausch
 Further Reading
 Video
 Reviews
 Your Curriculum Links
 Discussion Questions – Let’s Talk!
The company and the shows
Tanztheater Wuppertal pina bausch
Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch is performing in New Zealand for the first time; this is a very
special and unique opportunity for students.
The company, under the direction of Pina Bausch (one of the most significant choreographers of our
time), revolutionised dance, creating a new genre called ‘dance theatre’ - Tanztheater. An excerpt
from the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch explains:
“It began with controversy; in 1973 Pina Bausch was appointed director of dance for the Wuppertal
theatres and the form she developed in those early years, a mixture of dance and theatre, was wholly
unfamiliar. In her performances the players did not merely dance; they spoke, sang - and sometimes
they cried or laughed too. But this strange new work succeeded in establishing itself. In Wuppertal
the seeds were sown for a revolution which was to emancipate and redefine dance throughout the
world.”
Pina Bausch died of cancer in 2009 at the age of 68, five days after being diagnosed. Her work
continues to live on.
On 5 September 2015 in Positano, Italy, Lutz Förster, now Artistic Director of the Tanztheater
Wuppertal Pina Bausch, was awarded the 2015 Léonide Massine Dance Prize in recognition of his
life’s work, “for his charisma, his imagination and technical precision” as an “extraordinary dancer
and performer who has spread the message of Pina Bausch’s dance theatre throughout the world.”
Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch continues to perform the works, and share the legacy, of Pina
Bausch around the world.
Pina – an inspiration
Madonna and David Bowie are fans, and so is St Vincent. Actor Alan Rickman said she “pins you to
your seat. It’s like she’s connected to your bloodstream or something”. Sculptor Antony Gormley said
of her, she’s “an inspiration to me for the last 20 years”.
Pina Bausch was the “high priestess of dance theatre” (Guardian), with such a loyal following that,
when a retrospective of her work was performed as part of the London 2012 Festival ahead of the
Olympic Games, there were fans raiding their bank accounts and clearing their diaries for the nearly
30 hours needed to see all 10 shows.
“Her work has the scale of grand opera and the dream-quality of Fellini's films” The Independent
The shows
The Rite of Spring (premiered 3 December 1975)
Frühlingsopfer (Rite of Spring) is danced to Stravinsky’s
famous score of the same name, a piece of music that is
said to have caused a riot when it was first performed
Image: ulli weiss
for a Parisian audience in 1913. The Bausch interpretation has 29 frenzied dancers perform on a floor
covered with thick dirt. The hounded subject of the piece, a sacrificial young woman, dances to
death.
According to choreographer Matthew Bourne, the first half of this “astonishing pairing” (Guardian)
of classic Pina Bausch works is the “only true masterpiece” ever set to Stravinsky’s score. In Bausch’s
hands, the music soundtracks a spectacular study in primitivism, with the sexes confronting each
other and the dancers streaked with sweat and dirt by the end of their performance.
“A timeless piece, portraying an elemental struggle for life and survival, with repetitious gutwrenching movements leaving the audience itself gasping for breath. Barbaric rites of sacrifice are
played out on a vast expanse of dirt, the soil clinging to the dancers’ sweat-covered bodies as they
dance till they drop, the large cast sweeping over and across the stage in waves, until they collapse
from physical and mental exhaustion.” Culturekiosk.com
Café Müller (premiered 20 May 1978)
The piece is based on the observations of character and gender Bausch made as a child at her
parents’ restaurant. Dancers stumble around the stage crashing into tables and chairs, often
performing the piece with their eyes closed.
“… there is a sense that they are refugees from some long-terminated event. Trapped in an
existential tape loop, they endlessly reprise their actions and interactions” –
The Guardian review
Café Müller, set to the music of Henry Purcell, is a quieter and more
intimate take on Bausch’s recurring theme of strained relationships, and
excerpts from it featured in Pedro Almodovar’s 2002 film Talk to Her (also
part of the Festival’s Bausch season, see p17 of the main New Zealand
Festival brochure).
Image: jochen viehoff
meet pina Bausch
Image from the film AND The Ship Sails On
Pina Bausch was born in 1940 in Solingen and died in 2009 in Wuppertal. She received her dance
training at the Folkwang School in Essen under Kurt Jooss, where she achieved technical excellence.
Soon after, the director of Wuppertal's theatres, Arno Wüstenhöfer, engaged her as choreographer.
From autumn 1973, she renamed the ensemble the Tanztheater Wuppertal.
Image: wilfried kruger
Under the name Tanztheater Wuppertal, although
controversial at the beginning, the company gradually
achieved international recognition. Its combination of
poetic and everyday elements influenced the international
development of dance decisively. Awarded some of the
greatest prizes and honours world-wide, Pina Bausch is
one of the most significant choreographers of our time.
Further reading
Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch links:
http://www.pina-bausch.de/en/dancetheatre/index.php
http://www.pina-bausch.de/en/pina_bausch/
http://www.pina-bausch.de/en/pina_bausch/works.php
Obituary: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/danceobituaries/5713208/Pina-Bausch.html
Interview – Working with Pina Bausch :
http://www.culturekiosque.com/dance/inter/pina_bausch.html
Video
Trailer to the film Pina: http://www.pina-film.de/en/trailer.html
Video of The Rite of Spring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LG7C07iDM&list=PLU4zCBkgBbxqnuE-lZ5VqYJ88LLqcwlhD
Video of Café Müller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36s1UxPM9LA
Reviews
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2008/feb/17/dance.modernism
http://londondance.com/articles/reviews/cafe-muller-the-rite-of-spring-at-sadlers-we-1344/
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/tanztheater-wuppertalpina-bausch-sadlers-wells-london-783233.html
your curriculum links
Which subjects does Rite of Spring and Café Muller link to?
Drama
Dance
How?
Pina Bausch was a revolutionary in the arts. Before Pina there was dance, and there was theatre two very distinct art forms. Pina Bausch’s contribution to performance art was to combine,
intertwine, these two forms and create something called dance theatre, or tanztheater in German.
She had her dancers speak, laugh, cry, or sing, performing in various other ways not usual in dance
at that time, therefore adding new dramatic qualities to dance work.
Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch has never come to New Zealand. For such globally significant
and seminal works to be performed here gives any dance or drama student who attends the
performance a unique and potentially once in a lifetime opportunity.
Read further for more specific information about how The Rite of Spring and Café Müller contributes
to the following Achievement Standards:
Subjects & Standards
Dance
 The ‘dance theatre’ form was founded by Pina Bausch. The work is seminal in its development of
dance around the world, creating new ways to push the boundaries of dance and how audiences
interacted with dance.
AS90860 - 1.4
Demonstrate understanding of the elements of dance.
AS90005 - 1.6
Demonstrate knowledge of a dance genre or style.
AS91212 - 2.8
Demonstrate understanding of a dance genre or style in context.
 Attending this show meets the following Achievement Standards of engaging with live dance.
AS90861 - 1.5
Demonstrate understanding of a dance performance.
AS91211 - 2.7
Provide an interpretation of a dance performance with supporting evidence.
AS91594 - 3.7
Analyse a dance performance.
Drama
 Attending this show meets the following Achievement Standards for students attending live
performance.
AS90011 - 1.7
Demonstrate understanding of the use of drama aspects within live performance.
AS91219 - 2.7
Discuss drama elements, techniques, conventions and technologies within live performance.
AS91518 - 3.7
Demonstrate understanding of live drama performance.

This show specifically entwines drama and dance, which in itself is a form of ‘dance theatre’.
Though this would normally be considered ‘dance’ it has a wider context in terms of theatre
form for drama students.
AS90998 - 1.3
Demonstrate understanding of features of a drama/theatre form.

Pina Bausch has enormous significance in the theatre world. Though she was a choreographer,
not a theatre director as such, her work, practice and methodology crosses genres and has
inspired (and continues to inspire) artists in many differing fields.
AS91516 - 3.5
Demonstrate understanding of the work of a drama or theatre theorist or practitioner.
Discussion questions – let’s talk!
These questions are a guide. They will be more appropriate for some ages than others. They are
designed to provoke further discussion.

What were the dance pieces about? Was there a story?

Could you relate to the pieces?

What were some of the thoughts you had as you watched it?

How did you feel watching?

Did you have a favourite of the two: The Rite of Spring or Café Müller – why?

How successful were the performers in keeping the audience engaged throughout the
performance?

How did the performers use their bodies to create different moods and characters within
the pieces?

Was there any stand-out performers for you? Why? What gave them presence? Discuss
what stage presence is, and how we achieve it.

What did you notice about staging, lighting, sound, music, costume and other production
elements?

How did the production elements support or enhance the performance?

Was there anything you didn’t like about the performances? Why?

Were there parts of the performances you feel you didn’t understand?

Were there parts of the performances that really grabbed you? Why?

These dance works were made in the 1970s, around 40 years ago. Thinking about what
dance performances were at that time, how do you think people reacted to this new form?

Can you find an example of another dance work (or film, theatre, art) that challenged its
audience?

How timeless do you really think these pieces are? Why?

How do you think the work of Pina Bausch has influenced dance and theatre makers over
time?

If you had to describe either of these pieces to a friend, what would you say?