Moving and Missed

"…como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si… (Like moss on a stone)”
Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch
Howard Gilman Opera House
Brooklyn, NY
October 20, 2012

By Martha Sherman
Copyright © 2012 by Martha Sherman

Pina Bausch was a poet of movement; her tools were her dancers’ bodies – and stories. Her final work, “como el musguito, ” was filled with Bausch’s powerful and familiar movement vocabulary:  a dance poem about love.

Performed in her signature “tanztheater” form, the work mixed dramatic movement, words and sounds, all woven together by the performers’ connections to the audience and each other. The dancers’ own stories and emotions were central to the telling, and as unexpected as the scenes and shifts were among sadness, humor, solitude and connection, there was much that felt familiar. The affection and emotions of the audience was inevitable. Bausch’s last work would have been a building block in the architecture of her career; it was only chance that made it the capstone.

This piece was originally developed as part of a series that Bausch was creating through several international residences; “como el musguito” was based on the time the dancers’ spent in Santiago, Chile, and was danced to a mix of haunting and rhythmic songs forming a magical dance score. In her familiar format, Bausch connected her own perspective with the personal tales her dancers. The linked scenes of dance and short stories were impressionistic, not literal, evoking the place through the experiences of the artists.

Bausch’s movement was filled with sweep and drama; the multi-colored long slim gowns worn by the women, and the sweep of their long hair were the stage’s dressing. Unlike some of her work with huge sets (such as enormous boulders and stage-soaking rain showers,) this used only a white and deceptively simple floor as background for the colorful swirl of the movement and costumes.

The simple white stage, though, held secrets. It periodically opened and closed along unexpected jagged cracks; a souvenir of Santiago’s earthquakes.  As soloists or duos moved, the stage began to pull apart in fault lines that framed, and sometimes trapped, the dancers. It repaired itself as well, quietly reconnecting to form the uniform floor. Other disturbances were also repaired, notably the small pools that formed, as water – another eternal Bausch fascination – was dumped or poured on dancers. In funny, non-sequitur scenes, women were doused or doused themselves; the puddles were quietly mopped up, as others in the company danced to distract us. Things fall apart -- and then they come together again.

The work itself was woven together with the solos of Bausch’s dancers, whose now-familiar and personalized offerings shifted between duets and group pieces. Layering pathos and pain, and humor and whimsy, the solos felt familiar, despite their unpredictability in pattern and direction. In a tortured opening solo, Silvia Farias Heredia moved restlessly alone and then among men who wanted to capture her. Twisting her body into a tabletop, two partners tried to coax her into responsiveness, as she howled in manic laughter. Later, as a group of men surrounded her, her body froze, rigid and upright, as they folded and bore her across the stage. In solo, her hair swirled along with the wild movements and shivers of her body, but the opening scene then melted into a trio of solos that were as light, even silly, as Heredia’s was pained.

Often, the contrasts of serious and silly came from the same dancer. Anna Wehsarg folded herself in half, her body’s tight angles a contrast to the swooping caress of her flowered skirts. Then, in a funny, unexpected short scene, Wehsarg sat in a chair, as Rehner Behr poured water over her head. Unmoved, she continued to put on her makeup.

In a series of powerful male solos, the men twisted and flailed their upper bodies frantically, contorting and filling the space. Dominique Mercy, a long-time Bausch collaborator and now a co-artistic director of the troupe, danced a solo that used the entire stage, embracing it as a world.

While the solos and duets interspersed long dramatic scenes with shorter comic ones, the grouped dances leaned more to affectionate humor. In one scene, the cast sat in a long diagonal across the stage, each dancer with legs splayed around the one in front, as they lovingly picked through each others’ hair. Later, in a group dance that split the women and men, the women did a dance all lying on their stomachs on the floor. Their faces remained sweet yet cagey as they twisted on their arms, the women ignoring the line of men also lying there, who yearned after them.

Dancers engaged the crowd in the seats (cleaning one audience member’s glasses, offering a snack to another) as well as each other. In one funny scene, Fernando Suels Mendoza welcomed each of the women onstage with a flattering Spanish complement (“Ay, que linda! Wow!”), kissing and flirting with each of them; in fact, he really did love them all.

From torment to flirting delight, and all to the mesmerizing score, “como el musguito” tells tales of love. The dancers seemed to throw not only their bodies, but also their stories and souls, into this work; they honor their choreographer. Like moss on a stone, she intertwines with them all.

copyright © 2012 by Martha Sherman

Photos by Stephanie Berger

Top:  Cast, in "como el musguito..."
Middle: Ditta Miranda Jasjfi and Aleš Čuček in "como el musguito..."
Bottom: Pablo Aran Gimeno (standing) and Dominique Mercy in "como el musguito..."