Abstract
Costume designs in Kontakthof contribute not only to the visual aesthetic of the work but also support Bausch’s aim to examine heterosexual encounters. The designs periodise the work suggesting an era when fashion was instrumental in configuring ideas of gender binaries. Visually and kinaesthetically Bausch’s choreography presents dancing bodies as they wrestle with restrictive costumes as metaphorical of the malaise within heterosexual relationships. Kontakthof’s critique of heterosexual social behaviour is read against Bertolt Brecht’s Gestus and ideas of complication and contradiction, while Bausch’s choreography, specifically its style of repetition, proposes gender as a construct with reference to Judith Butler and Susan Foster.
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Notes
- 1.
‘Es sind immer dieselben Sachen oder ähnliche Sachen. Eigentlich sind es immer Mann-und-Frau-Themen oder Beziehungen, also unser verhalten or usere Sehnsucht oder unsere Unfähigkeit, unsere Ohnmacht; bloß die Farbe, die wechselt manchmal.’ Pina Bausch interviewed by Jochen Schmidt: ‘Nicht wie sich Menschen bewegen, sondern was sie bewegt’ [Not How People Move, but What Moves Them] in O-Ton: Stefan Koldehoff et al. (eds.), p. 36. (trans. F. Cronin).
- 2.
The inclusion of everyday gestures in contemporary dance is commonly attributed to the work of choreographer Merce Cunningham with composer John Cage at Black Mountain College in the early 1950s. Later the work of the New York-based Judson Church Group pursued diverse choreographic practices with inclusion of everyday or pedestrian movement rejecting the notion of dance as a virtuosic art form. For further reading, see Sally Banes’ Terpsichore in Sneakers 1987 and Ramsay Burt’s Judson Dance Theatre: Performative Traces, 2006.
- 3.
‘Tanzgeschichte ist Teil von Gesellschafts-geschichte’ [Dance history is part of social history] in Klein 1992, p. 13. Elsewhere Klein gives detail of works by German choreographers Hans Kresnik and Gerhard Bohner where Kresnik is noted for his political stance in an interview in 1990 recalling his frustration at a dance world that was concerned with fairy tales: ‘Frauen in Ganztrikots, Männer in Ganztrikots, ich dabei, und wir tanzen ohne Sinn und Verstand’ [‘Women and men in all-in-one lycra leotards, I am there, and we’re dancing without reason and understanding’] p. 241.
- 4.
Bausch’s rhetorical question is useful here for context: ‘Warum tanzen wir uberhaupt? […] Das is einfach nur noch so eine komische Eitelkeit. Und ich glaube, daß wir uns noch einmal näher kommen müßten’. [‘Why are we dancing at all? […] It has become a strange sort of vanity, which has grown far afield from people. And I believe that we must once again come closer’.] See Bausch in Schmidt in Koldehoff et al. (2016), p. 37. (Trans. F. Cronin.)
- 5.
For further reading on Ausdruckstanz and the history of Tanztheater, see essays by Hedwig Müller and Isa Partsch-Bergsohn in The Pina Bausch Sourcebook: The Making of Tanztheater by Royd Climenhage (2013).
- 6.
G. Klein, p. 244. The text in German reads: ‘Pina Bausch war in der Bundesrepublik eine der Protagonistinnen, die unter dem Brechtschen Stichwort >Theater der Erfarhung< die gesampte Kunstgattung revolutionierte’ (trans. F. Cronin).
- 7.
Pina Bausch interview with Jochen Schmidt, ‘Meine Stucke Waschen von Innen nach Außen’, Ballett International Heft/2, 1983, reproduced in O-Ton: Pina Bausch: Interviews und Reden, Koldekoff et al. (eds.).
- 8.
In my experience as original cast member of Bausch’s work Palermo Palermo (1989), a selected number of scenes that were not completed in time for the première were rehearsed for a number of weeks after the opening night.
- 9.
Anne Martin, former ensemble member of Tanztheater Wuppertal, in conversation with the author, 24 March 2019. Martin recalls Borzik’s ability to simply drape a fabric around a dancer’s body and to ‘add a few pins and make it look spectacular’.
- 10.
My naming of gestus throughout does not reflect my experience of Bausch’s process or production where Bausch, certainly in my presence, never referenced gestus. My interest is to analyse how gestus is embedded in the rehearsal period in her choreography by means of her choice of movement and the movement’s attack, rhythm, and so forth.
- 11.
In Butler 1990. Wittig is quoted on p. 24. Double quotations marks are Butler’s.
- 12.
Bausch’s views on repetition were familiar to her ensemble.
- 13.
The precise moment of collapse is captured in a photograph by Guy Delahaye in Guy Delahaye, Pina Bausch: Photographies de Delahaye. Textes de Raphael et Leonetta Bentivoglio (Paris: Éditions Solin, 1986), pp. 104–5.
- 14.
Pina Bausch interviewed by Stephen Locke, December, 1979: ‘Eine gewisse Erregung dabai’ (pp. 45–59). Reproduced in O-Ton Pina Bausch: Interviews und Reden Koldehoff et al., p. 57.
- 15.
See The Drama Review (TDR) 30, (2), 1986 (special issue on dance for reception to Bausch’s work in the US).
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Cronin, F. (2022). Pina Bausch’s Kontakthof: Choreographies of Gender and Costume. In: Halferty, J.P., Leeney, C. (eds) Analysing Gender in Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85574-1_2
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