There were men, of course, and they were good, but the show was distinctly female in its energy and focus. Occurring at the Park Avenue Armory’s Wade Thompson Drill Hall, the double bill program investigated stories of the crone and the maiden. They were united by the mother who brought us all together – Pina Bausch.
Although dead for over a decade, Bausch’s legacy refuses to calcify into that of a golden oldies company, touring the hits for ever-shrinking audiences. Instead, her work still resonates. On opening night of common ground(s) and The Rite of Spring, both New York premieres, young and old, dance and non-dance folks packed the rows for a collaboration among the Pina Bausch Foundation (Germany), École des Sables (Senegal) and Sadler’s Wells (U.K.) as part of the Van Cleef & Arpels Dance Reflections Festival. (For more about the background of this program, please check out Kathy Elgin’s review on Bachtrack.)
common ground(s) – a duet by and between Malou Airaudo, a founding member of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, and Germaine Acogny, the matriarch of contemporary African dance – roots itself in female friendship. Attired in sinuous black dresses with deep V backs, the duo weaves their unique voices into a contrapuntal melody of self-care and compassion.
Using the simplest of props, they invoke a woman’s work across time and space. A long stick becomes an oar for an imaginary boat they row together. One carries it over her shoulders, like a yoke. Metal buckets are for washing feet. Acogny and Airaudo gossip and chat and bicker, their words evaporating in the cavernous hall before they reach our ears. Their choreography feels timeless, our ancestral grandmothers magicked into flesh and blood.
They dance, too. Since they’re in their 70s, there won’t be any pyrotechnic tricks. Instead, they reveal the efficacy of gesture and presence. Arms ripple, hands beckon, and backs undulate. They gently embrace and step through underarm turns in a slow ballroom dance of sorts.
While respectful of the other, each claims her power – and her past. Airadou moves with a confident grace, her port de bras billowing like sails that have caught a breeze. She tilts her chin skyward, acknowledging the kings and queens who elevated ballet into a lingua franca of dance. Acogny shows off points and lines with angular positions of her limbs and punchy stomps. She gazes right at us, her eyes daring and mischievous.
They are different, a white woman and a black woman who sprang forth from countries far from one another. They are the same, women with storied careers who’ve dominated their field. They are #cronepower.
Functioning as its own de facto piece, the long but necessary intermission prepares the space for Bausch’s The Rite of Spring. Unspooling to the found sounds of our chitchat and admonishments from the ushers to STOP TAKING PICTURES, workers spread fragrant peat over the square floor. As their rakes swish methodically, these actions transform from labor to art, a post-modern “Step in Time”.
Bausch’s The Rite of Spring premiered in 1975 and, since then, has become a masterwork among the many stabs by the many artists tackling Stravinsky’s challenging score and Nijinsky’s folkloric inspiration. This iteration features performers from all over Africa, including Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Mali, Benin, Burkina Faso, and more. They are young. They are beautiful. And they must sacrifice one of their own for the good of them all.
Even if you know nothing about The Rite of Spring, you’ve probably guessed the victim will be a maiden. From ancient Aztec rituals to modern horror movies, a dead virgin is often seen as the appropriate apology for outsized anger, whether that ire stems from a man or from a god.
The community gathers, trembling in terror but committed to the ritual. With the women in pale slip dresses and the men in dark trousers, they plant their feet in deep second positions, fists clenched, arms pointing to the ground. They strike a passé while curving their arms in a cock-eyed S. As a group, they loop in gigantic circles and cleave the space in two with a long diagonal formation. To the deities, the appeal of this sacrament may lie in the sheer potency of a crowd doing the same thing at the same time – a divine flash mob.
A red garment acts as the short straw. Like a game of hot potato, various women reluctantly clutch it before passing the unlucky talisman to another. Someone must die, though, so a victim emerges. Eyes wide with fear, the chosen one submits to her fate: she will dance herself to death.
Flailing, twirling, kicking, lurching, she does just that. The community observes this moving suicide impassively. Ultimately, she falls face-first onto the soil-covered floor in a tangle of limbs and unrealized dreams.
The community has been saved. That is, until the next time, when only the death of a maiden will do.
