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Soul sisters
PremiumPina Bausch with Chandralekha. (Sadanand Menon)
In 1988, Chandralekha was invited to perform at a festival in Wuppertal, a small town in Germany, where dancer Pina Bausch, now 68, lives and works. The place is also the headquarters of Folkwang Danschule (now Hochschule), the most acclaimed contemporary dance school in Germany and arguably, in all of Europe. Bausch had graduated from this school.
Chandra was performing her first choreographed piece Angika at the main theatre at Wuppertal and Pina was in the audience along with her troupe of dancers. There were 17 curtain calls in the performance, and Pina later came backstage to meet Chandra. The three of us, along with others, went out for dinner. Chandra asked Pina how the audience in Wuppertal had reacted to her performance because the context of the piece was completely Indian. Pina told her that the number of curtain calls “was unusual even for Germany". That was the first time both of them had met, but they could instantly connect to each other. Two people, from very different worlds, had found a common ground; artistically, they were on the same plane and that’s what forged a relationship that lasted for years until Chandra passed away on 30 December, 2006 in Chennai at the age of 78.
Chandra was trained in Indian classical dance, and all her life, she tried to modify the traditional idioms by bringing in contemporary content and then taking the form to an abstract level. Pina, on the other hand, uses all available forms in the world of Western dance—from ballet and modern dance to acrobatics—and creates a powerful political meaning out of it.
The one thing common between them was that both had very strong political views, which is rare among dancers. Through their work, they tried to communicate the politics of the body. Pina had once famously said: “I’m not interested in how people move, I’m interested in what makes them move."
Around 1998, Pina received a prestigious award from the government of Germany. Until then, the establishment had chosen to ignore her because of the political nature of her works, just as the Indian cultural establishment chose not to acknowledge Chandra’s contribution. A grand ceremony was held in Berlin and they offered to pay for the airfares of two artistes of Pina’s choice, and she invited Chandra and a writer from Argentina. On that occasion, Chandra had performed a mimetic Bharatanatyam piece, offering Pina a garland of flowers with her gestures.
Pina and her troupe are performing in India after 13 years, and it’s unfortunate that Chandra is not here. But I will not miss the opportunity to watch Pina again. She is a complete artiste because she can synthesize movement, pace, form, content and colour—a fascinating amalgam of many disparate elements—to convey one idea.
I was in New Delhi in 1994 when Pina last visited India, and I attended the press conference that Lechner was conducting with her. He tried very hard to make her admit that, at heart, she’s a German artiste. Pina refused to respond to his questions, blowing rings of cigarette smoke instead. When he asked the same question a third time, she put her cigarette aside, looked him in the eyes and said, “Gorg, had I been a bird, would you have called me a German bird?"
The sense of exhilaration and passion which Pina brings to a performance is incomparable. She’s one of the greatest artistes of our time and Indian artistes can learn a lot from her.
(As told to Rachana Nakra.)
Bamboo Bluesby Pina Bausch and the Tanztheater Wuppertal, on 12 January, 7pm, at the Jamshed Bhabha Theatre, NCPA, Mumbai; call 022-66223737 for tickets. In Kolkata, on 18 and 19 January, 6.30pm, at Rabindra Sadan, GL Sarani.
(Write to lounge@livemint.com)
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