The mighty Bausch

Sadler’s Wells

Contrary to some claims, the late Pina Bausch did not invent Tanztheater.

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Stephen Pollard

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Contrary to some claims, the late Pina Bausch did not invent Tanztheater. Nor did all her productions stick to the mind-boggling aesthetic she is universally known and remembered for. Just look at the Iphigenie auf Tauris she created in 1974, shortly after being appointed director of dance for the Wuppertal theatres.

Although the germ of what eventually bloomed as Bausch’s own Tanztheater is detectable in this dance–opera, pure dance still reigns supreme; the choreography is not as rhapsodic as it is in her later creations, and the only words one hears are those delivered — more or less beautifully — by the singers.

Gluck’s work, presented here in the German or ‘Vienna’ 1781 version, was indeed the first opera-based performance that Bausch created with great success. This production remains dramaturgically faithful to the original text and line, without ever succumbing to the visual metaphors of her reading of Gluck’s Orpheus. The plot is not easy to follow, especially without the surtitles that these days accompany every operatic performance. Although a quick look at the synopsis can help, the dancing is so utterly compelling that any dependence on the original text becomes almost superfluous.

As in other early and fully-danced works, Bausch’s superb use of the score is intoxicating. The work is not yet 40 years old, and the movement vocabulary comes across as an imaginative complement to the music, conducted by a masterly Jan Michael Horstmann. Reiterations, a signature feature of Bausch’s later oeuvre, are employed only as leitmotifs and add greatly to the psychological make-up of each principal character. Yet as enthralling as the various solos, duets and trios can be, it is in the deployment of the dancing chorus that Bausch’s art can be appreciated in full.