The Rite of Spring / common ground[s]

“How would you dance, if you knew you were going to die?” This is the central question asked by the late choreographer Pina Bausch of her dancers in 1975 when she created her seminal work The Rite of Spring, which examines unyielding ritual when the sacrifice of a “chosen one” changes the season from winter to spring. This pioneering work, establishing her iconic approach, has gone on to become one of the 20th century’s most significant and important bodies of dance theater.

Faithful to Stravinsky’s visceral score, Bausch’s monumental choreography is given a thrilling new life by a specially assembled company of 36 dancers from 14 African countries. Danced on a peat-covered stage, they clash and engage in a wild and poetic struggle of life, ritual, and sacrifice that pays tribute to her unparalleled genius.

Rite is paired with a new work created, performed, and inspired by the lives of two remarkable choreographers, professors, and grandmothers: Germaine Acogny, the founder of the Senegalese École des Sables who is widely considered to be “the mother of contemporary African dance,” and Malou Airaudo, who performed leading roles in many of Bausch’s early works as a member of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. This poetic and tender antidote to Rite reflects their shared histories, emotional experiences, and common ground.