The Line of Performance: Pina Bausch’s Dance-Theatre

Abstract

Bausch gives us much to ponder about the logos of the lines of human actions and life.¹ For example, Café Müller and Sacre du printemps, her first important works, are about the very large scale lines of life that orient our whole existence privately and communally, whereas 1980: A Piece by Pina Bausch, and its related pieces like Kontakhof and Arias, are more concerned with the overall style and tenor of the mundane gestures we use to comport ourselves to others, our own selves, nature and culture. She is able to throw light on the essence of all these comportments and life-styles (which is that they have the same formality characteristic of the objects, events, actions, ideas and emotions in this age) by joining them autocratically to the diverse modes of formalization and regularization found in traditional ballet (in Sacre), in modernist dance (Café) and most impressively in performance art or dance-theatre (1980). We shall be able to discuss only one work in this space, 1980, because our method requires that for thought to be well-grounded or valid it must emerge as far as possible from within the depths and intricacies of the artwork and that necessitates an extended, careful and detailed consideration of it.