Pina Bausch's Dance Theatre

First full-scale thematic analysis of Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater, critically evaluating the impact of modernist theatre on her choreographic method

This book presents a new reading of Pina Bausch’s dance theatre, orienting it within an international legacy of performance practice. The discussion considers not only the influence of German and American modern dance on Bausch’s work but, crucially, interrogates parallels with modernist and postdramatic theatre (including Antonin Artaud, Samuel Beckett, Jerzy Grotowski, and Robert Wilson), the influence of which has been largely neglected in existing studies of her oeuvre.

Pina Bausch’s Dance Theatre provides a wide-ranging study of Bausch’s aesthetic and methods of practice, with case studies ranging from the beginning of her career to her final choreographies.

Key Features

• The first full-scale study interrogating the relationship between Bausch’s Tanztheater and modernist theatre practice, structured around a chronological framework of case study choreographies
• A new theorisation of the development of Bausch’s oeuvre, locating her approach in a broader context of intercultural artistic exchange in the post-WWII period
• Draws on literary and theatre theory to form an interdisciplinary methodology for understanding and interrogating Bausch’s oeuvre
• Based on extensive archival research and a specialised knowledge of the evolution of modern dance