Bausch, a towering icon of modern dance, was diagnosed with cancer five days ago and succumbed quickly, passing this morning. She was 68 years old.
Below I have posted Charlotte Higgins lovely remembrance of Bausch from her On Culture Blog on the Guardian UK's website and several links to her work.
Pina Bausch, 1940-2009
We have lost dance's most visionary, influential figure, who redrew the map of the theatre arts
"A simple note on the Wuppertal Dance Theatre's website says it: this morning, 30 June, Pina Bausch died, aged 68 – quickly, after a cancer diagnosis five days ago. Only two Sundays ago, she appeared on stage at the Wuppertaler Opernhaus.
This is an appalling shock and a tragedy not only for the dance world, but also for the entire international arts world. Bausch's visionary work as dancer, choreographer and creator of the Tanztheater Wuppertal had a reach way, way beyond the confines of the German town where she worked. Theatre and opera simply wouldn't look the way they do today without Bausch; she has also had an enormous influence on visual art and cinema, too (Almodóvar's Talk to Her contains sequences of her work). I can't count the number of times I've seen work that either pays tribute – or cheaply rips off – Bausch's subversive, distinctive choreographic creations. Subtley but clearly, she redrew the map for the theatre arts.
The official tributes and obituaries will pour in. As a personal response – not as an expert in contemporary dance, simply as an enthusiastic member of the audience – I will be grieving for the loss of the most original voice in dance today. More than that, every performance that one saw (and her relatively rare appearances in London were instant sellouts, usually attended by a cultish, extraordinarily chic audience almost as watchable as her shows) was an event that left one emotionally changed, whether drained or elated or touched by an unspeakable beauty.
Instant memories – the dirt and sheer savagery of her early work Rite of Spring, brought to Sadler's Wells last February, which left me pinned to my seat with terror.
The same programme brought Cafe Müller - a classic work recalling her childhood memories of her parents' cafe, was confusing, troubling, strange, obsessional, wistful.
Kontakthof, brought to the Barbican in 2002, was a deeply moving piece that was performed by dancers in their 60s and 70s, forcing the audience to confront prejudices and fears about old age.
Then the sheer beauty of Nelken, in which the stage is covered by thousands of carnations.
Or Nefes, her late, Turkish-inspired work, in which the anguish and frustration expressed in earlier pieces was exchanged for something more (but never simply or unambiguously) joyous. A trademark was the way she asked her dancers to express not just the purity of their bodily movements, but their inner vulnerabilites, sometimes anger.
Watching a work by Bausch was never less than a dangerous, and profoundly fulfilling, experience. We will all mourn her."
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