On a stage carpeted with 8,000 carnations in bloom—a vast field in shades of pink—Alsatian dogs on leashes patrol menacingly, men in drag bunny-hop for a passport check, and children are screamed at. What else could this be but a work by the inimitable Pina Bausch? Nelken (Carnations) opens tonight in Wuppertal, Germany, 42 years after its first performance, in 1982, which was seven years before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Nelken is a perfect example of the genre that Bausch pretty much invented—Tanztheater (dance theater). As in most of her work, dance as we know it is nowhere to be seen. And linear plotlines? None. Expect to see a relentless repetition of vignettes that explore many corners of the human condition. Expect charismatic performers reaching through the fourth wall. (“You want to see more?” we are asked.) Expect absurdity bordering on nonsense, then sudden poignancy.
Human fallibility and the traumatized Cold War psyche are laid bare in Nelken. Promises of love’s endurance and effervescence peek through occasionally during moments of virtuosic classical dance, as if they were fragments of a child’s dream. George Gershwin’s yearning melody “The Man I Love,” spelled out in sign language, sounds throughout Nelken, its theme in 4/4 time.
By the end of the performance, however, hope is outweighed by various ritual humiliations—forced feedings, cruel playground games—always perpetrated by tyrannical men. These scenes of the body at its most dominated form a historical snapshot: postwar Germany struggling with itself. Given the ferocity that Bausch’s dancers are known to muster, each performance packs a punch. Nelken takes you to another universe for two hours and should be a required journey for any student of postwar modern dance.
Since Bausch’s death, in 2009, her company, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, has worked its way through three artistic directors and is now on its fourth. Boris Charmatz, the experimental French cult choreographer, has been at the helm since 2022 and oversees this revival of Nelken, set to tour in the 2023–24 season. Unless otherwise stated, the company’s revivals strive to be near-identical reproductions of the original performance, and Nelken is no doubt supported by the extensive and meticulous archive of the Pina Bausch Foundation. Managed by her son, Salomon Bausch, the archive is filled with Bausch’s own writings, notations, videos, photographs, and assorted ephemera. All are used to aid dancers who are re-creating highly specific roles and directors who are trying to faithfully preserve the past.
Dancegoers weary of earnest but largely cheaper imitators of Bausch—fueled by the endless Mitteleuropean Expressionism that pervades the dance world—take note. There is nothing like a return to the original to remind us why Pina endures in death, as she did in life.
Nelken opens in Wuppertal, Germany, and then travels to London and Luxembourg
Genevieve Marks is a London-based dance writer and dramaturge
