Rare Pina Bausch Revival Comes to Tanztheater Wuppertal

Photo

Two new, full-length pieces by Dimitris Papaioannou and Alan Lucien Oyen, as well as a revival of Pina Bausch’s rarely seen “Seven Deadly Sins,” are among the works that the Tanztheater Wuppertal will perform in the 2017-18 season, the company has announced. The season is the first to be programmed by Adolphe Binder, the fourth director to run the company, in Germany, since Bausch’s sudden death in 2009, and the only one to have no direct relationship with Bausch.

The appointment last year of Ms. Binder, formerly the director of the GöteborgsOperan Danskompani, seemed to signal a move away from a company identity linked until now only to Bausch’s work. Ms. Binder has confirmed that move by programming work by Mr. Papaioannou, an established Greek choreographer who created the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, and by Mr. Oyen, a Norwegian choreographer.

The repertory nonetheless remains strongly focused on Bausch’s work, with eight pieces presented over the rest of the season, which opens in September with “Café Muller” and “The Rite of Spring” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. The season includes some of Bausch’s best-known pieces: “Masurca Fogo,” “Viktor” and “Nelken (Carnations),” as well as “Seaven Deadly Sins,” created in 1976 and last seen in 2009.

“We wish to create new spaces for interaction and to be a source of inspiration, on both large stages and beyond,” Ms. Binder wrote on the company website. “Follow us as we pass on the glowing embers. And the matches!”

Continue reading the main story