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Bausch 1940 - 2009 (69)

Dance, dance, dance, otherwise we are lost.


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Pina Bausch (Pina Bausch, 27 Ιουλίου 1940 - June 30 2009) was a German dancer, dance and ballet teacher, a pioneer of modern dance and a leading choreographer, creator of a new kind of spectacle, the dance theater, combining dance, music and theatrical elements . Born in Solingen, Germany, in 27 July 1940, she had two older brothers and her parents were the owners of a café-restaurant and rooms for rent. In this business Pina from an early age she used to give dance performances for their quest, showing her natural talent and passion. At 15 she was admitted to the Folkwang Dance Academy in Essen, which was conducted by Kurt Jooss, who was expressionist and one of the initiators of free dance. In 1959 she won a three-year scholarship to the Juilliard School in New York where she studied close to the most important progressive choreographers of the time and explored the boundaries of dance. Returning to Germany in 1962 she was made the main dancer at Folkwang Ballett and after six years, in 1968 she presented his first choreography entitled "Fragments". The next year the ballet renamed Folkvangk dance studio and Pina became the artistic director; In 1973 undertook the artistic direction of Wuppertal’s ballet state scene. She presented “Fritz”, “Iphigenia in Tauris”, “Seven Deadly Sins”, and other works in which caused a shock to the audience, agitating them with unprecedented situations. Dancers were gesturing, smoke, cried, flirt, squabble, recount dreams; many unheard and unseen things were happening on stage, many citizens reacted considering that public money were wasted. Bausch accepted abusive phone calls and many people were hostile against her in Wuppertal. She considered moving to open-minded Paris but in the end she insisted and finally she was vindicated; in 2003 she was awarded the key of the city, after she had created amazing performances and had triumph in the largest cities of the world. Some of the projects was the Rite of Springs (1975), the autobiographical Café Muller (1978) with memories of the family business, the "Kontakthof" (1978) in which the dancers were aged from 58 to 77 years, the «Palermo , Palermo »with the dancers balancing an apple on their head," Nelken "(2005), where the scene was full of flowers.

She believed that the new art resides in life and with rare clarity and intelligence raised the most extreme situations of man in the scene to break with conventions and expectations, thus changing the dance, and theater, now talking about pre- and after Bausch season. She believed that life is a journey, in the sense of exploring the unknown, and it was trying in her works, to explore it. Like all pioneers she was fought and accused that had put dance in the back seat, focusing too much on the scenery and the theatrical element. “I am trying to talk about the life that surrounds us, the existence for us. And the problem is that life cannot always be danced to traditional aesthetic forms" she said. The style of her performances was distinguished for the directness and honesty, speaking to the heart of the viewer, while the dancers were all sizes and ages with an emphasis in their personality. One of her benchmarks were the gestures, as she had said: "What I try to do, is to find a language to life ..." In her personal life she had married the Dutch designer Rolf Borzik who died of leukemia in 1980. The following year she met Ralf-Salomon and had a son with him. Bausch continued creating and dancing until the end, in 2008 she made a long tour in Great Britain; in 2009 she was diagnosed with cancer and on June 30 she left for her last exploration.