Not to see Pina Bausch and her Cafe Müller.

"Café Müller" Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina bausch

I’m writing because I’m hurting. Now that I’ve got the chance to visit one of the theatrical meccas of humanity, London, I also got news that "Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch" is coming to Beijing to perform exactly at the same time I’m out of the country.

It is a ridiculuos coincidence, and it hurts ridiculously; I feel pain for missing the chance to see these two enormous works being performed at Beijing’s Tianjiao Theater: Café Müller (1978) and Frühlingsopfer (Le Sacre du Printemps) (1975).

Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch poster. Tianjiao Thetare, Beijing, China (September 2007)

I’ll miss her, Pina Bausch, the myth, I’ll miss it, Café Müller, the myth’s work; then I remember those words as the history of my sources, the history of my creative revolutions, revolutions which made me see performing arts with an open mind, creating with open arms and trying to embrace the sphere of totality. I’ve never seen them inside a theater, never on the stage, I learned about them first through books, through people depicting their experience, then through photographs, videos (like this one here) but, I repeat, never live.

Pina Bausch keeps teaching with a piece of art created 30 years ago, thirty years… Pina Bausch is a goddess. She is a goddess because she is a creator.

Now, I’m watching the Café Müller video you can see in this post, and I’m enjoying it, and I’m crying. It is sublime and is a source of personal discoveries. Spasms, painful spasms, beautiful spasms. Can you see those hands pledging? Those feet and their repetitive movements? Those embraces? I’m watching the structured chaos, the Tanztheater.

The name of Pina Bausch flourishes in the very tight orchard of the divines. And I’ll be at The Globe trying to recreate the 16th century.

"Frühlingsopfer" (Le Sacre du Printemps) Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch