Pina Bausch Choreographer 1940–2009

“What I try to do is find a language for life,” said Pina Bausch, the German choreographer and company director who has died of cancer aged 68. Bausch stood as one of the most notable creators of movement of the postwar era, unassailable as the high priestess of Tanztheater, an expressionist genius who, through her catalogue of more than 40 works, explored the often bleak, sometimes uplifting aspects of the human condition. The style, content and presentation of her works divided audiences sharply, provoking walk-outs and arguments from some but inspiring devotion in others. Wherever and whenever Bausch’s company performed, there were queues for returns.

Pina (Josephine) Bausch was born on July 27 1940 in the steel town of Solingen, growing up in her parents’ café-bar; her experiences there informed her 1978 work Café Müller, in which Bausch performed the mysterious role of the sleepwalker, whose appearances at beginning and end frame the action. With her parents’ encouragement, she attended dance school and by 1955 was studying at the Folkwang Schule in Essen under the master of expressionist movement Kurt Jooss. She also won a scholarship to study in New York at the Julliard School under José Limon, Antony Tudor and Margaret Craske, during which time she also danced with Paul Taylor’s dance company.

On her return to Germany she joined the newly formed Folkwang Ballett under Jooss, whom she was to succeed as director in 1968, a post she held for five years. In 1973, the invitation came from the Wuppertaler Tanztheater to become both director and choreographer; this was the ensemble that would become her own for 36 years (it was renamed Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch). In this small provincial town Bausch built a worldwide reputation, not least with Le Sacre du Printemps (1975), her version of The Rite of Spring. The masterpiece brought her global recognition and stands as one of the few versions that match Stravinsky’s score; it came at a happy point, the beginning of her relationship with the designer Rolf Borzik, who died in 1980.

After Le Sacre du Printemps, Bausch’s works began to adopt a less narrative style and were also presented in increasingly ambitious stage settings, from the meadow of carnations of Nelken (1982) to the collapsing wall of Palermo, Palermo (1989). Her return to Kontakthof in 1998, 20 years after its creation, saw her place non-dancers aged 65 and over in a music hall setting to explore their hapless, hopeless courtships; it demonstrated that Bausch’s quest was not for purity of movement (she mocked ballet convention) but rather its inherent quality as informed by thought and emotion. What some observers found impenetrable was a distillation of a rehearsal process that explored performers’ relationships, memories and reactions through discussion and improvisation; apparently simple and banal moves could thus have emerged from deep emotions. “I’m not interested in how people move but what moves them” she said once in a rare public utterance.

Bausch’s influence extended beyond dance and her admirers were to be found in all art forms, not least in cinema: in Hable con ella (Talk to Her), Pedro Almodóvar’s 2002 film, excerpts from her works were featured, including Café Müller, and she appeared in Fellini’s 1983 E la nave va (And the Ship Sails on). A project with Wim Wenders was pencilled in for this autumn. Bausch continued to perform until ill health prevented her from doing so (she could not appear during her company’s most recent 2008 visit to London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre), although according to Tanztheater Wuppertal, she took her last bow on the Wuppertal stage on June 21. She is survived by her second husband Ronald Kay and their son Rolf.