COMMON GROUNDS | THE SPRING OFFERING
This Article Originally Published by the Pina Bausch Foundation
On Thursday evening, the Pina Bausch Foundation, together with the École des Sables (Senegal) and the Sadler's Wells Theater (London, UK), presented the double evening common ground [s] • The Sacrifice of Spring in the foyer of the former Schauspielhaus Wuppertal.
Salomon Bausch, chairman of the board of the Pina Bausch Foundation, explained the origin of this collaboration, which lies , among other things, in the Foundation's dissemination projects, in which the Foundation rehearses Pina Bausch's choreographies with international companies . Jorge Puerta Armenta, who, together with Josephine Ann Endicott, is leading the rehearsal of Das Frühlingsopfer in this project, suggested that a rehearsal with an ensemble created especially for a particular piece be implemented. The Foundation then got in touch with the École des Sables, to which it was repeatedly drawn to the attention of, among others, scholars of the Pina Bausch Fellowship for Dance and Choreography.
Josephine Ann Endicott and Jorge Puerta Armenta reported on the auditions that took place in Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Senegal in December 2019. In an intensive workshop at the École des Sables, they selected 38 dancers from 14 African countries for rehearsals from over 180 applications and 135 audition participants * together with other current and former ensemble members of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch . “After more than 20 years in which more than 700 dancers have been trained professionally at the École des Sables ”, Helmut Vogt, co-founder of the École des Sables, is very pleased that “50% of the dancers in this ensemble attend during their training of the École des Sables. "
From February 2020, this newly created ensemble will rehearse the choreography of Pina Bausch in an intensive rehearsal period up to the premieres in Dakar on March 25 and 28, 2020. The double evening will then be shown from April 9 to 12, 2020 in the Wuppertal Opera House. Advance ticket sales are available through the Kulturkarte Wuppertal (Kulturkarte-wuppertal.de). Afterwards there will be performances in London and Paris as part of an international tour .
Alistair Spalding, artistic director of Sadler's Wells Theater, emphasized the wish of all project partners to be able to show the double evening in as many places in Africa as possible. He said of this opportunity: "I'm so happy to be able to present this truly unique collaboration not only to Sadler's Wells audiences, but to audiences all over the world." For him, this project closes a circle: in 2008 he forged together with Pina Bausch Plans for the co-production of a new piece by the Tanztheater Wuppertal with the École des Sables. When he was asked by Salomon Bausch to participate in the project in 2017, he did not know about the previous plans.
In addition to the rehearsal of Pina Bausch's choreography for Igor Stravinsky's Das Frühlingsopfer, a new work by Germaine Acogny, founder of the École des Sables, and Malou Airaudo, a member of the ensemble from the very beginning of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, comes into focus. Together they show a new creation with which they explore their dance heritage and exchange experiences. During the discussion, Malou Airaudo and Germaine Acogny gave first insights into the creation of the joint duet. The two artists described the work process as a very personal and moving exchange for them.
The project partners thanked the Federal Cultural Foundation, the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and the International Coproduction Fund of the Goethe Institute, who made the project possible with their funding. Her thanks also went to the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch for the close cooperation.