Pina Bausch - Rite of Spring Analysis PDF

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Summary

These notes analyze the choreography and performance of Pina Bausch's Rite of Spring with an emphasis on the lens of gender construction....

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“Rite of Spring” choreographed and reimagined by Pina Bausch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1hFwsXaTVY

1. How it compares to the original a. Performed on a dirt stage. Two groups, one of men and one of women b. By the end of the piece, dancers are visibly dirty, sweaty, and exhausted c. Women break out as featured dancers, the red dress in the dirt that becomes a costume later on; this is just a piece laden with despair. d. Bausch stuck to original idea of prehistoric fertility rites and human sacrifice. Her staging was de-Russianized: There were no elaborate folk costumes as seen in the Joffrey Ballet's reconstruction of the original Vaslav Nijinsky production, which had such an infamously stormy response in 1913. Bausch's version pre-dates that and just has women in flesh-colored body coverings and bare-chested men in black trousers. That was mostly a good thing. Though the music is explicitly based on Russian folk songs from the opening bassoon solo on, we have no context for that today. e. The sacrifice: The Chosen One for the sacrifice was visually singled out by her red gown, but you saw her earlier in the piece, possessed by some electric force outside of her that somehow made her an appropriate candidate for this fatal religious privilege. 2. How gender is constructed a. Gender is clearly established in this piece. Men and women dance together in bands and clusters, like schools of fish that seem to almost move as one unit b. Bausch’s work has this recurring motif of violence against women’s bodies c. “Pornography of pain” one review calls it d. First, costuming distinguishes men and women onstage into a clear binary. Women and men are both made to be pretty bare- flesh-colored dress and shirtless men e. Women with forms that are rounder

f. Men, kicking up more dirt, more straight lines g. Yet, all the movement is pretty violent, as the bodies move with urgency and abandon that makes the dancers seem compelled h. Yet, the women suffer more in their repetition. While the men make industrial, laboring movements, like the fist swinging down or the throwing of the hands and arms in front of themselves, the women have a repeated motion of jabbing their elbow into their stomachs i. “The same action makes you feel something completely different by the end." Pina Bausch j. Disturbing, shocking, and even unsettling; but the urgency and furtiveness also draws the audience in 3. How it reflects the time it’s in a. 03. Dec 1975 @ Opera House Wuppertal b. Premiered on the same night, in the same show as “Cafe Mueller” c. In 1973, Bausch took over a company in Wuppertal, which was quickly renamed Tanztheater Wuppertal. But what really captured the dance world’s attention was a 1975 production of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” on a stage covered with soil. d. Bausch has a reputation for busy, prop-laden, filled stages which the dancers must combat to make space for them to dance. Yet, Rite of Spring, by Bausch’s staging employed Stravinsky's music with no reservations, and with choreography very much fashioned to its emphatically stomping rhythms and ear-three-dimensional sound shapes. e. In an article discussing the evolution of Stravinsky ballets over time, The author says that Bausch’s decision to imbue her stage with limited but poignant theatrical props (the dirt and the red dress) was one that returned to the pure musicality of the piece and best honored the music. f. At this time, 1975, expressive postmodern dance was coming onto the scene, evoking theatrical elements and the use of literary and pictorial devices

g. “The dirty simplicity helped Bausch from launching into more personal digressions,” which was ultimately a good move for this particular iconic piece. Kept it intriguing and dynamic, and especially with the plot staying in line with the original, the audience then got to focus on the new insights that Bausch’s choreography brought to the piece rather than a multitude of overlapping and confusing elements....