Media Release For Immediate Release – March 7, 2019 Nelken Line Vancouver Project
"I loved to dance because I was scared to speak. When I was moving, I could feel.'' Pina Bausch
Kinesis Dance Somateatro invites you to celebrate International Day of Dance by joining us for two free performances of Pina Bausch’s signature dance work, The Nelken Line. Performances will be in Vancouver at noon on Sunday April 28th at Granville Island and in Burnaby at noon on Monday April 29th on the grounds of The Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, Deer Lake.
The Nelken Line Vancouver Project is lead by Kinesis Dance Artistic Director Paras Terezakis and performed by twenty dancers paired with twenty novice community performers. Conductor Tim Sars will lead the Vancouver Carnival Band in playing the Nelken Line theme, Louis Armstrong’s West End Blues. Additional members of creative team include Media Artist Sammy Chien and Scenographer, Andreas Kahre.
This project came by the invitation of the Pina Bausch Foundation to the global dance community. The Foundation developed this project as part of their mission to keep the choreographic legacy of Pina Bausch alive. Pina Bausch was the high priestess of dance theatre from the 1970’s until her death in 2009. She was a German born choreographer, a commanding presence and archetypal figurehead whose penetrating artistic vision provided a rare window into the human heart. In high contrast to the cool experimental dance work of her time, Pina’s works delved deeply into the human condition and often explored themes of desire, love, illusion, disappointment and obsession embracing both the heights and the hell of human nature. She confessed to being inspired by real-life feelings and the experiences that her dancers brought into the studio. During the filming in 2009 of the Wim Wenders’ film PINA, she unexpectedly died. Wenders cancelled the production, but the devoted dancers of Pina’s Tanztheater Wuppertal convinced him to complete the film. The film brought her work to an even greater level of fame. William Forsythe claimed. “Pina basically re-invented dance… She was a category of dance into herself.” When talking about her own work Pina Bausch once said, “I loved to dance because I was scared to speak. When I was moving, I could feel.” After her death, the Tanztheater Dancers kept the Company together, continued performing her repertoire and create unique opportunities to keep her legacy alive. In 2017, The Pina Bausch Foundation sent an invitation worldwide to “Join The Nelken Line” also known as The Seasons or The Carnation Line. “Lines” are a recurring element in many of her works, lines are sequences of movement with repetitive steps and gestures that the dancers perform standing in a long queue. In the Nelken Line there are four distinct gestures that represents the alternation of the four seasons.
The Foundation asks that those who take up the Nelken Line challenge not only perform it but make a video recording of their live event that provide back to the Foundation to be shared worldwide on their digital platform. In this way, all Nelken Line projects can be seen and enjoyed globally.
When local Arts Producer, Carolyn Lair saw the Pina Bausch Foundation invitation, she thought a West Coast Canadian production would not only celebrate Bausch but also feature the extradentary talent of our local dancers, performers and media artists. When she took the idea to Kinesis Dance Artistic Director, Paras Terezakis he agreed it was a great project to take on. Paras in turn invited artists Sammy Chien and Andreas Kahre to join the project. When the Nelken Line Artist team sat down to the planning table they realized that they were all first-generation immigrants to Canada and decided to make this project “totally inclusive” where all are welcome to participate with a special outreach to other new immigrants. It was also artistic choice to perform the piece in high density locations where many people can join in and enjoy the performances. Each member of the Artistic Team has their own unique take on this creative opportunity.
Project Scenographer and Dramaturge Kahre: “Pina Bausch’s Nelken Line is a poignant evocation of the balance between the cyclical and the ephemeral dimensions of our shared humanity, between what perseveres and what is infinitely fragile. In this project, our goal is to set it with both professional dancers and community participants, against the backdrop of a city whose natural beauty holds an uneasy balance between the displacement of indigenous culture, a triumphant display of global capitalism and its imminent transformation by climate change.”
Artistic Director Paras Terezakis: “I am honoured to set Pina Bausch’s iconic Nelken Line in the City of Vancouver and Burnaby Deer Lake as the backdrops because her work lives in the sky, the sun, in water, forest, city and mountains. I embrace this unique opportunity to see and feel a work through the eyes of Bausch. I am fascinated how her four subtle gestures of the four seasons can exude such profound sensitivity. Pina Bausch said, ‘I am more interested in what moves people, than how they move’.”
Nelken Line Media Artist Sammy Chien: “I have embarked on a creative journey of exploring movement-based live art through new media technologies. I am now curious about how I might pay respect to such a ground-breaking pioneer as Pina Bausch with new media, film and the contemporary lens of the current sociopolitical climate in Vancouver. I'm interested in seeing The Now and seeing what is the change that has happened since the last decade.”
To find out more about The Nelken Line Vancouver Project, please go to the Kinesis Dance Somateatro website at kinesisdance.org. To register to be a community performer in The Nelken Line in Vancouver or for Burnaby go to kinesisdance.org/the-nelken-line-vancouver/
Carolyn Lair Producer Nelken Line Vancouver Kinesis Dance Somateatro [email protected]
The Nelken Line Project is made possible by our funders and sponsors.