A Discussion of the Choreographic Principles of Bausch and Forsythe and a Comparison between them. Give specific examples of their work.

FORSYTHE:

"When he works collaboratively, Forsythe challenges the traditional distinction between choreographer and dancer, thus questioning hierarchy, authorship, and disciplinary boundaries." Steven Spier

"I like classical dance. I think it's a nice neutral language. You look at a ballet and you read history. What we try to do is to keep the syntax logical without resorting to rhetorical ballet language. Choreography is a language. It's like the alphabet and you don't necessarily have to spell words you know: The value of a language is determined by the context in which it appears. The most important thing is how you speak with the language, not what you say." Forsythe

"Choreography is about organising bodies in space, or you're organising bodies with other bodies, or a body with other bodies in an environment that is organised."

"the gist of the whole piece [France/Dance] is the organisation of the human body as an art form."

"Disregarding the verticality and apparent effortlessness that inform ballet, Forsythe allows many different planes of orientation to co-exist, introducing a disequilibrium that gives the movement a quality of release and fluidity altogether different from the control and prowess emphasised by classical technique."

"certain areas of dance demand trance. You can't reach them without trance. Trance conditions contain particular aesthetic qualities for the active, involved person. That, I think, is a privilege: to participate in this state. They are in a state of ecstasy, and that has nothing to do with good or bad. It's a reaction, both psychological and biological - it's both, and it protects you. When human beings attain this state they can do very dangerous things without injuring themselves."

Why one dances, and how one organises the body in space.

PINA BAUSCH:

"Criticism of the training rituals of classical ballet, often a noticeable part of Bausch's choreography, can be traced to its roots in the critiques of dividing the body into discrete sections. In the mechanisms of bellet training the alienation of the body from its own impulses has become just as manifest as the isolation of the limbs from one another.


"What remains is a concept of physicality that's as far removed from logical-rational physical terms as from the ahistorical cult of naturalness as it appeared possible on Monte Verita. Pina Bausch's aesthetic is neither Dionysic in Nietzsche's sense nor ritualistic in Artaud's

"The collective body as an aesthetic mythos is Bauschian choreography's frame of reference in many respects."
Bausch:
As dance theatre Pina Bausch's is also a synaesthesia, one that allows us to see, hear and smell in equal degrees.


NOTES:

Bausch psychological as it is a narrative, what moves the body rather than what the body moves.

"Fear, one of the chief problems* of our age, is also a major topos in Bausch's work. Her own fear and the fear of her characters, a fear which paralyses, which provokes aggression, a fear of revealing oneself or of finding oneself without protection at the hands of a partner whose reactions one cannot trust because he might strike out "out of fear. "

Bausch may reject the label or box of meaning, so long as there is meaning found within the mind of the spectator. In sense to heal. Therefore her choreography is a process of delving into memory and emotion - her aim is to create a holistic organic work through exploration of fragmentation

Forsythe on the other hand delves into the technique, into how the body moves, what it moves and what moves it in the sense of physical influences, gravity, physiognomy, physiology, rhythm. . . Spiritual, in the sense of meaning found in the innocence from meaning of its conception.

Forsythe works with ballet, with breakdance, and improvisation

Bausch with memory, with emotion, and play

Forsythe celebrates challenges to body in his working process, Bausch laments it and fights it


*Italics my own. . . This is a meaning the interviewer sees. . . is one of many parts . . . fragmented . . . holistic . . . and love . . . and hunger


listening to: Igor Stravinsky 'Alleluja, laudate dominum'