Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch at Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg

Guest performance of absolutely world-class contemporary dance: During the Olympic Games in London in 2012, the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch presented ten works by legendary German choreographer Pina Bausch. In the spring of 2013, the dance company will be coming to the Göteborg Opera. This guest appearance will be the company’s first visit to Gothenburg, and its first to Sweden for 15 years.

The Tanztheater Wuppertal is one of the world’s most distinguished dance companies. Under the leadership of Pina Bausch, the company has had a huge influence on the development of modern dance and has been awarded prestigious prizes and distinctions throughout the world.

Café Müller is based on Pina Bausch’s childhood memories from her father’s café, where she sat observing the mystical relationships between the adults. To the notes of Purcell’s captivating Dido and Aeneas, the dancers demonstrate the whole repertoire of human emotion.

Le Sacre du Printemps is Pina Bausch’s celebrated answer to Stravinsky’s hundred year old masterpiece The Rite of Spring. This remarkable work drives the dance company to physical and emotional exhaustion during a convincing fertility ritual on an expansive peat field. Wim Wender’s Oscar-nominated 3D film Pina (2011) brought Pina Bausch to the attention of a very wide audience. This is what he had to say after seeing Café Müller:

“No, there was no hurricane sweeping over the stage. It was just...people. People moving in a completely new way, one that moved me in a way that I had never been moved before. After just a few moments I had a lump in my throat, and after a few wonderful minutes I lost control of my emotions and cried uncontrollably. This had never happened to me before. In life, perhaps, or sometimes at the cinema, but never when I had been watching something rehearsed and certainly not when I had been watching something choreographed. This was not theatre or pantomime or ballet, and absolutely not opera. As you know, Pina has created a completely new form of art: dance theatre.”