Pina bausch-Radical performance - Essay Example

There, she also started giving performances simultaneously. She attributes the solid foundation of her formative career to her tenure in New York. On her return to Germany, Bausch started performing in Folkwang Ballet. One of her early independent choreographic achievements was her creation Im Wind der Zeit, In the Wind of Time, which came first at the Second International Choreographic Competition, Cologne. Then onwards, Bausch went on to become director of Wuppertal Opera Ballet that was later rechristened as Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch.

With this new entity, Bausch started realizing her aspirations of reviving Ausdrucktranz. Unfortunately, the political developments and the spread of Nazism in Germany that culminated in WW2 put Bausch’s theatre movement on indefinite hold. Even after the war, theatre remained out of the wish list of Germans for quite some time, reconstruction of the war-ravaged country obviously taking priority. It was not until the early 1960s that a theatre renaissance started occurring in Germany. The war and its devastation had had a very telling effect on the collective psyche and all the suppression and frustration was waiting to vent itself out in the form of renewed creative energy.

In terms of theatre art, this energy surfaced in the form of a liberated, non-conformist free spirit that was not bound by convention. “Young dancers felt constrained by the formation of German ballet and American post-modern dance, and rebelled against the Americanization of their country. Some returned to the expressionism of Ausdrucktanz and started to venture into new ground, combining it with elements of other arts. Towards the late 1970s, the term Tanztheater, or dance theatre began to be used to distinguish the work of these choreographers” (Tashiro, 1999).

Foremost among them was the name of Pina Bausch. And thus, a legend started