History and Violence without Resolution: The Construction of Gender in the Work of Pina Bausch Brittany Peña College of the Arts, University of Florida

Modern dance choreographer and matron of Germany’s Tanztheater Pina Bausch (1940-2009) conducted numerous choreographic explorations that illuminated the construction of gender in postwar Germany. Bausch’s often shocking and mercilessly direct works evoked strong emotional responses from audiences worldwide. Bausch’s formative years growing up in in the 1940’s provided her with the “battle of the sexes” as a repeated motif, which she sometimes expressed in her work with eccentric violence. Throughout her career, Bausch used the body as a political weapon. She unraveled the relationships between men and women and the social conventions that ruled them. Her work never offered resolution; rather, Tanztheater forced audiences to reevaluate what they thought they already knew about their daily relationships. The motif of gender roles and stereotypes provides critical insights into the motivations, inspirations, and purposes of Pina Bausch, the matron of Tanztheater.

INTRODUCTION up hope that the longing for love can one day be met. Alongside hope, a close engagement with reality is he works of German choreographer Pina Bausch another key to the work; the pieces consistently relate (1940-2009) recognize and expose human desires, to things every member of the audience knows; has T wants, and needs, and ultimately question what we experienced personally and physically…she created are yearning for as individuals. Bausch’s invention of a an oeuvre which casts an unerring gaze at reality, much imitated-fusion of radical theatre, surreal art, sexual while simultaneously giving us the courage to be true drama and danced body language has redefined dance to our own wishes and desires. throughout the world by unpacking gender roles, stereotypes, and our normative reality. Servos defined Tanztheater as “… the union of genuine In this paper, I analyze the critical issues Bausch boldly dance and theatrical methods of stage performance, confronts to shape her notorious Tanztheater of human creating a new, unique dance form (especially in relationships. Bausch’s ongoing “battle of the sexes” was Germany), which, in contrast to classical ballet, born in the shadows of World War II. Even in today’s distinguishes itself through an intended reference to society, a man is expected to be dominant, aggressive, and reality” (“Tanztheater” n.p.). Bausch aimed to use emotive logical whereas a woman is seen as submissive, weak, and gesture in a new form, recalling the earlier development of emotional. Through my writing, I will argue that Bausch’s Ausdrucktanz, or "expressive dance," which looked to often-bizarre artistic expression was an honest everyday movements to express personal experiences and investigation of how she came to know the world. gained popularity in the 1920s through German expressionist dance pioneers, Rudolf Laban and Kurt THE BODY AS SUBJECT Jooss. Using expressive dance movement to unite all forms of art media, they sought to “achieve an all-embracing, The universal need for love, intimacy, and emotional radical change in humankind” (ibid). ’ eclectic security was key to the creations of Bausch’s Tanztheater. theatrical approach drew on Germany’s prewar tradition in German author, Norbert Servos concurs in his 1998 article, dance , or Ausdruckstanz, which the Nazis “Tanztheater”: had attempted to co-opt, and when unsuccessful, suppressed. Recalling Jooss’ unique contributions, Bausch In consistently renewed poetic excursions she pointed out, “He was like a papa, in a way, very, very kind, investigated what brings us closer to fulfilling our very, very warm, with a lot of humor, very much joy for tense need for love, and what distances us from it. things, people. A very beautiful man,'' she says. “He knew Hers is a world theatre which does not seek to teach, so much about history, music. His school was special, with does not claim to know better, instead generating an opera department, acting, pantomime, graphic arts, experiences: exhilarating or sorrowful, gentle or photography, sculpture, all together” (Climenhaga 15). confrontational - often comic or absurd too. It creates Looking at her company, one can note her beloved driven, moving images of inner landscapes, exploring teacher’s influence. the precise state of human feelings while never giving

University of Florida | Journal of Undergraduate Research | Volume 17, Issue 1 | Fall 2015 1 BRITTANY PEÑA She became director of Tanztheater Wuppertal in 1973. guilt attached itself to Bausch’s generation of artists Especially in her later works, Bausch deployed speech, (Mozingo 103). social dance, repetition, dramatic, comic and surrealist After World War II, Germany was divided into East and situations, nudity, cross-dressing, brutality, and tenderness West republics. Ironically, the reconstruction of the in order to create uncomfortably perceptive commentary on country and its society instigated a “ballet boom,” one that the human situation. She uses the body as a political and Germany had never seen before (O’Reilly, “Pina Bausch”). social entity while examining the societal conventions The return to classical, academic ballet halted the growth inscribed on the lives of men and women. American author of expressive, contemporary dance in West Germany, David W. Price described Bausch’s Tanztheater as a which explains Bausch’s classical training and the relative that “reveals the body as the site of a “safety” of her early work as a choreographer. In the late social inscription – the body on which the writing of the 1960s, however, a cultural shift toward increased political politics of gender reveals itself in performative acts” (323). activism and awareness set free her creativity. After this Born in the middle of World War II (1940), Bausch had shift, “Bausch abandoned her conventional methods and an innate understanding of conflict from a very young age. began exploring the use of social commentary and dance Bausch’s life was submerged in conflict and isolation and theatre” (ibid). In 1990, Bausch lived to see the influenced by the postwar ballet renaissance in the 1950s, reunification of Germany, leading to further civil unrest. an increase in political and social activism in the late "I'm not interested in how people move, but what moves 1960s, and the Cold War until the reunification of them," Bausch famously stated in an interview with Jochen Germany in 1990. Only in the final decades of her life did Schmidt in 1984. Bausch’s work is an unconventional she live outside of a battleground. combination of both dance and theatre. She has said that In her 2007 Kyoto Prize acceptance lecture, she she never considered what she does choreography, but that recollected: she expresses feelings by whatever means would best convey them. The individual's experience is the critical The war experiences are unforgettable. Solingen component for Bausch and is expressed in bodily terms. suffered a tremendous amount of destruction. When She created a new type of body language whereby, “the the air raid sirens went off, we had to go into the small role of the body is redefined from one in which it shelter in our garden. Once a bomb fell on part of the disappears into the function of creation and is objectified, house as well. However, we all remained unharmed. as is typical in ballet and most dance, to one in which it For a time, my parents sent me to my aunt’s in becomes the subject of the performance” (Tashiro, “Pina Wuppertal because there was a larger shelter there. Bausch: Life & Works”). Each dancer's body tells its own She thought I would be safer there. I had a small black story rooted in experience. rucksack with white polka dots, with a doll peering out of it. It was always there packed ready so that I “YOUR FRAGILITY IS YOUR STRENGTH” could take it with me when the air raid siren sounded. (Bausch, para. 2) Wim Wender’s 2011 documentary, Pina—Dance, Dance, Otherwise We Are Lost, vividly details company Although we know that Bausch began training with Jooss members’ insights into Bausch as a person and an artist and at the age of fourteen, very little is written on Bausch’s also a variety of works meticulously performed and filmed. childhood. However, the propaganda fostered by the I was intrigued to find how that when her dancers would educational system of the time provides insight into her get stuck or seem unsure, Bausch would reassure and early formation. German post-war textbooks provided challenge them to dig deep and to feel by reminding them information on how she was educated about what she lived that, “Your fragility is your strength,” or, more essentially, through (Wickett 7). Shockingly, the texts not only went tell them to “Dance for love.” The intimacy of her into detail about the horror and destruction wrought by the connections to her performers demonstrated how important war but positioned Germans as victims (Puaca 126). Texts the humanistic quality is to her and her work. erased the notion that the German populace had a role in Julie Anne Stanzak, a performer of the Tanztheater any war crimes. Although acknowledging that Hitler and Wuppertal since 1986, recollected on camera: “The way the select few in power gave orders, the texts failed to Pina worked allowed all of us to be sad, furious, to cry or mention that low-ranking soldiers in the Nazi Party were to laugh or to scream. We could bring out all of our direct participants in the atrocities. “It was not until qualities, it was as if Pina was hidden in each and every decades later…that texts would begin to reflect the role one of us, or the other way around as if we were all a part that individual Germans played in the genocide and to of her.” Furthermore, Barbara Kaufmann, another member acknowledge that inaction was equivalent to action” of the company since 1987, reminisced, “Pina was a radical (Wickett 8). The postwar generation resented their elders’ explorer. She looked deep into our souls. There was one inability to stand up for human rights, and their collective particular subject she kept asking us about: What are we longing for? Where does all this yearning come from?”

University of Florida | Journal of Undergraduate Research | Volume 17, Issue 1 | Fall 2015 2 HISTORY AND VIOLENCE WITHOUT RESOLUTION: THE CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER IN THE WORK OF PINA BAUSCH Bausch constantly challenged and questioned her dancers, Kisselgoff noted that such physical maneuvers are making them question their own personal motives, wants, “textbook examples of movements performed by and desires. It highlighted the connection between what schizophrenics” ("Dance: Premiere of '1980, A Piece by Bausch has experienced and what she has imagined or Pina Bausch'"). Another woman, similarly dressed, enters wanted to experience in her work. The words of her the room shortly thereafter with her eyes closed and goes dancers encouraged me to watch her works with a keen eye towards the chairs, which are most of the time cleared out for the relationships that developed, specifically, the pieces of her way by a man. He watches over and makes a path of Pina’s beliefs, experiences, and intentions embedded in for her, but he can become impatient with her fumbling. each performer, which ultimately led me to examine Café There’s an edge, a possibility of violence or desertion on Müller. both the part of the man and the woman as if, at any moment, their pattern could erupt into total chaos. “THE WOUND HAD BEEN FORGOTTEN” The women can be viewed as two halves of the same whole, or perhaps they represent two choices: either yes or Pina Bausch was born as Philippine Bausch on July 27, no towards life, the world, love and intimacy. There is a 1940 in Solingen, Germany. At the time, World War II was stunning moment of stillness in which two men and a in full effect, and Nazi Germany served as one of the most woman sit at a table overlooking the body of a second prominent aggressors in the conflict. Bausch was the third woman lying in a heap on the floor. This living tableau best child of poor parents who owned a working-class hotel- conveys the idea of alienation and estrangement between restaurant. She told in a 2001 the sexes. As the performance progresses, the audience interview that the café customers were a formative begins to wonder how much the “public forum inhibits influence on her view of sexual attraction: she observed exchanges between men and women” because it requires everything from tenderness to violent abuse. "It was a women to adopt schizoid behaviors so that they are place where life happens, and couples have love affairs and “divided against themselves and must in some sense fights," she said, "I saw that love was a strong relationship disfigure themselves in order to be on public display” in which anything can happen. For some people, fighting is (Price 329). exciting; life would be boring without it." The fascination In another haunting scene, a man and a woman lock in a with primitive human emotions dictated most of her desperate embrace, only to be systematically repositioned memorable productions, including the semi- by a third man, who causes the woman to slide from her autobiographical Café Müller – in which she appeared as a partner's arms and crash to the floor. This motion repeats childlike ghost sleepwalking through a rowdily populated nearly a dozen times until the forlorn couple begins to café. repeat this brutality on their own to each other in a Café Müller, created in 1978, is about inadequate and Pavlovian response of self-inflicted brutality, which may inept attempts between men and women to establish “signify that behavior between men and women is learned, relationships. The piece takes place in a café, but the maze culturally coded and determined, and just as inadequate as of tables and chairs on the stage “serves as a metonymic it is inept” (Price 329). Figure 1 shows the third man expression of all public spaces in which men and women manipulating the pair as if they are dolls or mannequins, meet” (Price 329). Bausch has obscured and abstracted this which puts him in full-control of their relationship. The familiar, seemingly neutral situation in a way that shows painfully repetitive movement is cruel, pathetic and how common social structures inhibit and alienate indescribably sad all at once. The cycle goes on for so long individuals, specifically their movement and development. that the couple becomes exasperated. The same twosome Bausch expands on the dichotomy and estrangement later reaches a troubling fate. between the sexes by having women adopt schizoid behaviors, indicative of isolation, despair, and mental illness in a social setting. Thus, she raises the question of the ongoing stereotype: why is it necessary, or even acceptable, for women to disfigure themselves in order to participate in society when men are not expected to change anything? The psychodrama begins with a lone woman dressed in an ethereal gown, edging into a cluttered room with a faltering gait, appearing crippled. There is very little space. Chairs are strewn around and she bumps into them. Her eyes are sealed shut. To avoid obstacles and to stay safe from pain, she keeps to the wall, clinging to the margins. The woman is played by Pina Bausch. Dance critic Anna Figure 1. Man manipulates couple.

University of Florida | Journal of Undergraduate Research | Volume 17, Issue 1 | Fall 2015 3 BRITTANY PEÑA Figure 2 shows the man repeatedly slamming the woman (Price 331). Dance critic Jay L. Kaplan recoiled from the into a wall. In turn, she does the same: she grabs him about work’s fatalism, stating: “Bausch’s feminism is a grim the waist and hurls him at the wall with such violence that world-view which proclaims biology is destiny. It is male he can only cushion the impact by throwing out his hands nature to dominate women, and love is a continuation by and his feet ahead of him at the last minute. other means of the battle of the sexes” (76). In Tanztheater, there is no resolution. The audience is left to contemplate the opposing points of view. The final scene in Café Müller captures the essence of Bausch’s theoretical paradox. A busy woman that ran around the restaurant as if she were a customer, watching everyone, places her red wig and fur coat on the solo female dancer, but “up to this point the solo female dancer’s actions and responses have appeared to occur outside a social context, but when she dons the garments of café society, the audience must ask, Is her pain and anguish a natural response or is it socially determined?” (Price 331). Bausch offers no answers; instead, she depicts the dialectic of opposing theories of gender artistically encoded in her Tanztheater. Figure 2. Couple throws each other into the wall repetitively. Bausch once indicated that the early 1980s was a time when she focused on the world and our fear of violence A jarring representation of reality is presented with “the and disaster. The war made her a nervous child, she said, body under physical and emotional assault suspended in which is why her parents sent her to ballet classes early on. time and space by the framing device of the stage” (Ross, She recalled in an interview, "I loved to dance because I "Difficult Dances: The Choreography of Pina Bausch"). was scared to speak. When I was moving I could feel" (qtd. Such ferocious contrast develops throughout the work as in Cruickshank, para. 3). Nelken, her 1982 production set they go from holding onto one another for dear life, to a on a field of plastic carnations, recalled Nazi tyranny with moment of stillness to share a tender and still kiss, to its prowling militia and guard dogs. The performers played brutally assaulting one another. Herve Guibert wrote of increasingly vicious childhood games while watched by Café Müller that it leaves you “with the heart wounded and armed guards and dogs. "I am afraid of violence," she told bandaged, bathed in an emanation of tears” (77). In the the Telegraph in a 2001 interview. "And, of course, some same review, he goes on to explain: “It is not Pina Bausch of these things appear in the pieces." World War II served who wounds the heart; it was already hurt, but the wound as a large influence in her work, and as a result, her view of had been forgotten, written off as foolish, romantic or relationships between men and women. It was a time of narcissistic, and Pina Bausch, through the bodies of her violence, panic and a constant state of fear. As a child, dancers, reminds us of the reality and the vitality of that Bausch would watch couples interact with one another in wound” (Guibert 77). her parent’s café: “…she spent many hours watching adults Only the women have their eyes sealed shut throughout trying to survive in a devastated and dislocated world” the work, leaving them extremely vulnerable and feeble in (Murray & Keefe 78). During this time of war, chaos comparison to the men on stage. The women are revealed lurked around every corner. The ferocity and abuse she immediately as existing at a disadvantage. They are weaker observed ultimately shaped the male-female relationship than the men and dependent on the men to protect them she staged in Café Müller. from running into anything. We see that women are not to be seen or heard unless given permission; instead, they are WHAT ARE YOU YEARNING FOR? to maintain their submissive place beneath their men. The man is depicted as dominant and in control whereas the Longing and yearning textures the work of Pina woman is depicted as fragile and in need of security. Bausch’s men and women. Relationships are saturated with However, Bausch also complicates the stereotype. The tension. When watching Café Müller, I found myself man and woman go back and forth throwing each other questioning what it meant to be a man or a woman during into the wall. Violence appears to be equally distributed World War II and how the war intensified and/or inverted between the two, but the gender stereotype is still perceptions of gender. In Café Müller, watching each subliminally present. The fight “must not” be fair as the character explicitly, I tried to decipher the motives, man is expected to be stronger than the woman, so, as a emotions, or connections between people and their result, he hurts her more than she hurts him. The work environment. In the end, I was most fascinated with seems saturated with essentialism: “Men and women are Bausch’s character. She was set apart from the action but fundamentally different and can never be reconciled” still a main part of the café. Her eyes were closed. Yet she

University of Florida | Journal of Undergraduate Research | Volume 17, Issue 1 | Fall 2015 4 HISTORY AND VIOLENCE WITHOUT RESOLUTION: THE CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER IN THE WORK OF PINA BAUSCH appeared more aware than those on stage with eyes opened. Bausch reflected on her life experiences and observations, She appeared to be reliving a dream or a memory. and using what she knew or wanted to know, implemented Standing, her upper body concave, her arms were tucked that into her work. The honesty and relatability of her work into herself. Figure 3 demonstrates how she would reach is what creates such a profound connection. I have found her arms out as if yearning for contact, but she would never that Pina Bausch’s own experiences, from living through a receive it. brutal war to carefully observing the relationships between men and women, served as the inspiration for her work. The feelings and emotions she felt, ranging from love to hate to desolation to joy, confront experiences of reality that all audiences can relate to. Without resolution, she recognizes and exposes human desires, wants, and needs, ultimately questioning what we are yearning for as individuals and why.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my professor and personal mentor, Dr. Joan Frosch. Her support and advice helped me break down my research into manageable pieces, find what was truly significant, and shape it into a successful paper I am proud to present. Figure 3. Bausch reaching out for contact with eyes closed. WORKS CITED Her arms would tuck in again, or she would grab her head or touch her fingers to her chest. Her face would go from Bausch, Pina. "Commemorative Lecture: What Moves Me." Kyoto Prize tranquility, to pain, to sadness, to thoughtfulness, to Presentation Ceremony. Inamori Foundation. Kyoto. 1 Nov. 2007. memory: looking inside. Lecture. In her work, Pina Bausch shows recognizable humans, Birringer, Johannes H. Pina Bausch: Dancing across Borders. MIT, not characters. She centers her work on very human 1986. Print. themes, such as the failure to communicate or to establish Cafe Muller. Perf. Pina Bausch, Malou Airaudo, Dominique Mercy, Jan contact between a man and a woman and the lack of Minarik, Nazareth Panadero, Jean Laurent Sasportes. Tanztheater empathy between individuals. Her powerful images give Wuppertal, 1985. DVD. expression to the pent-up violence and frustrations of Climenhaga, Royd. The Pina Bausch Sourcebook: The Making of modern life, sometimes reaching moments of serene Tanztheater. London: Routledge, 2013. Print. beauty. Her work Café Müller brings to life vivid social expectations and issues of stereotypes and gender roles Cruickshank, Judith. "Pina Bausch: Dancer and Choreographer Whose Seminal Work Gave an Unsettling View of the Human Condition." between men and women. She confronts the issue head-on The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, 3 July 2009. while showing her own personal life influences that Web. 11 Feb. 2015. occurred during World War II. In her 2007 Kyoto Prize acceptance lecture, Bausch said something that resonated Guibert, Herve. "Cafe Muller by Pina Bausch." Rev. of DVD Review. L'Arche Editeur. Sept. 2010: 77. Jildy Sauce. Web. 22 Mar. 2015. with my research and discoveries: Kaplan, Jay L. "Pina Bausch: Dancing Around the Issue." Ballet Review The fantastic possibility we have on stage is that we 15, no. 1 (1987): 74-77. might be able to do things that one is not allowed to Kisselgoff, Anna. "Dance: Premiere of '1980, A Piece by Pina Bausch.'" do or cannot do in normal life. Sometimes, we can The New York Times. 21 June 1984. Web. 26 Mar. 2015. only clarify something by confronting ourselves, with Mozingo, Karen. "The Haunting of Bluebeard: While Listening to a what we don’t know. And sometimes the questions we Recording of Béla Bartók's Opera ‘Duke Bluebeard's Castle.’" Dance have bring us back to experiences which are much Research Journal 37.1 (2005): 94-106. JSTOR. Web. 11 Mar. 2015. older, which not only come from our culture and not Murray, Simon, and John Keefe. Physical Theatres: A Critical only deal with the here and now. It is, as if a certain Introduction. London: Routledge, 2007. Print. knowledge returns to us, which we indeed always had, but which is not conscious and present. It reminds us O'Reilly, Mollie. "Pina Bausch." Web blog post. Pina Bausch. N.p., of something, which we all have in common. This Nov.-Dec. 2009. Web. 11 Feb. 2015. gives us great strength. "Pina Bausch." The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 1 July 2009. Web. 11 Feb. 2015.

University of Florida | Journal of Undergraduate Research | Volume 17, Issue 1 | Fall 2015 5 BRITTANY PEÑA

Pina -- Dance, Dance, Otherwise We Are Lost. Dir. . Perf. Servos, Norbert. "Tanztheater." International Dictionary of Modern Pina Bausch and Sandrine Pillon. HanWay Films, 2011. Dance. Detroit: St. James, 1998. Print. Documentary. Tashiro, Mimi. "Pina Bausch: Life & Works." Stanford Presidential Price, David W. "The Politics of the Body: Pina Bausch's Lectures in the Humanities and Arts. Stanford University, 1 Jan. "Tanztheater."" Theatre Journal 42.3 (1990): 322-31. The John 1999. Web. 20 Mar. 2015. Hopkins University Press. Web. Wickett, Miranda C. "Spring in War Time: Post-War Effects on Puaca, B. M. "Teaching Trauma and Responsibility: World War II in Bausch’s Le Sacre du Printemps.” Thesis. University of North West German History Textbooks." New German Critique 38.112 Carolina, 2013. Journal of Emerging Dance Scholarship (2013): 1- (2011): 135-53. Duke University Press. Web. 10 Mar. 2015. 19. Web. 20 Mar. 2015.

Ross, Janice. "Difficult Dances: The Choreography of Pina Bausch." Presidential Lectures: Pina Bausch. Stanford University, 18 Oct. 1999. Web. 19 Mar. 2015.

University of Florida | Journal of Undergraduate Research | Volume 17, Issue 1 | Fall 2015 6