Bamboo Blues

German choreographer Pina Bausch returns to Italy for an Italian premiere at Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto with Bamboo Blues, the show she created in 2007, a co-production with the Goethe-Institutes in India, after an international tour that included the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York and the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, as well as theaters in Calcutta, Delhi and Mumbai. This is the first time that Pina Bausch's prestigious international company, Tanztheater Wuppertal, will be a guest of the Spoleto 2Mondi Festival. Her performances at the festival are the only ones the company will hold in Italy this year.

Bamboo Blues was inspired by Indian culture, the kaleidoscope of colors, textiles, foods, sounds, clothing, and more that make up its deepest fascination. The show grew out of the field experience of the German choreographer, who has stayed in India several times: from her first trip in 1979 to the one in 2006 with her Company to Calcutta and in Kerala. Bamboo Blues is an admirable container, a hypnotic mosaic of images in which the traditional and contemporary aspects of India come together. A symbology rich in references, suggestions and quotations, which passes through the delicate yet incisive gestures of Indian dance, the vibrant physicality of the elements of its dance troupe, the set design made of bamboo scaffolding and white veils moved by the wind, the projection of videos, the brightly colored fabrics, and the unmistakable scent of cardamom. A performance that engages all the senses, at once magical in its reminiscences of the past and pressing in its aspiration to the future.

Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch
Artistic direction: Pina Bausch / organizational direction: Cornelia Albrecht / sets: Peter Pabst / costumes: Marion Cito / musical collaboration: Matthias Burkert, Andreas Eisenschneider / assistant artistic director: Robert Sturm / rehearsal assistants: Josephine Ann Endicott - Bénédicte Billiet, Matthias Burkert, Marion Cito, Barbara Kaufmann, Daphnis Kokkinos, Ed Kortlandt, Dominique Mercy, Helena Pikon, Hans Pop / dance masters: Christine Biedermann, Ernesta Corvino, Ed Kortlandt, Paul Melis, Agnes Pallai, Janet Panetta, Antony Rizzi / pianist: Matthias Burkert / photo/video collaboration (guest collaborators): Ulli Weiss /photo; Jérôme Cassou /video /stage manager: Peter Lütke, Felicitas Willems / Pina Bausch's personal assistant: Sabine Hesseling / Pina Bausch's assistant: Marc Wagenbach / assistant organizational direction: Katharina Bauer / organization: Katharina Bauer, Grigori Chakhov, Claudia Irman, Ursula Popp / video archive: Grigori Chakhov / press and public relations office: Ursula Popp / technical director: Manfred Marczewski, Jörg Ramershoven / lighting director: Fernando Jacon / lighting assistants: Jo Verlei, Kerstin Hardt (guest collaborator) / stage technicians: Dietrich Röder, Martin Winterscheidt / sound: Andreas Eisenscheider, Karsten Fischer / props and merchandising: Jan Szito / wardrobe: Harald Boll, Silvia Franco, Andreas Maier, Katrin Moos, Ulrike Wüsten / Shiatsu physiotherapist: Ludger Müller.

Andres Neumann International
Producer: Andres Neumann / Managing Producer: Elena Di Stefano / Technical Coordination: Massimo Monachesi / Press Office: Marina Baldeschi / Organizational Assistance to Spoleto: Linda Di Pietro

Pina Bausch

He was born to Solingen in Germany in 1940. In 1955 she began her dance studies at the Folkwang Hochschule to Essen under the direction of Kurt Jooss, where she would graduate in 1958. Thanks to a scholarship he moved to America to continue his studies at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. He danced with the Paul Sanasardo Dance Company and Donya Feuer, with New American Ballet and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In 1962 she returned to Germany and joined to the Folkwang-Ballett. From 1968 her choreography became part of the Folkwang-Ballett repertoire; the following year she took over as artistic director of the company. In 1973 Pina Bausch founded the Tanztheater Wuppertal, of which she is the director and choreographer, and which is currently considered the most important dance-theater company in the world. Numerous shows have been staged with the Tanzteather Wuppertal and she has also collaborated with theaters abroad such as the Opéra Nationale de Paris, signing the choreographies for The Rite of Spring in 1977 and for Orpheus and Eurydice in 2005.
to side of her activity as a choreographer, she appeared in Federico Fellini's film E la nave va in 1982, in 1990 she directed the film Die Klage der Kaiserin (The Empress's Lament), and in 1998 she directed Béla Bartók'sopera Herzog Blaubarts Burg (Duke Bluebeard's Castle) for the Festival International d'Art Lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence under the musical direction of Pierre Boulez. In 2001 she participated in Pedro Almodóvar's film Parla con lei with scenes from her performances Café Müller and Masurca Fogo.
In 1998 Pina Bausch with Ein Fest in Wuppertal together with friends and artists who came from all over the world celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Tanztheater Wuppertal. Since 2001 she has again directed her festival, the recent edition of which took place in November 2008 to Dusseldorf, Essen and Wuppertal.
Pina Bausch has received numerous awards and honors for her activities and work with the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, including: three Ubu Prizes, in 1983 for best foreign performance, in 1990 and in 1997; in 1999 she was awarded the Europe Prize for Theater and an honorary degree in performing arts from the University of Bologna; in 2003, to Paris, she was made a Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honor; in 2006, to London, she was given the Laurence Olivier Award and was named honorary director of the National Academy of Dance in Rome; in 2007 she was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement by the Venice Biennale and the same year the prestigious Kyoto Prize in Japan in the Arts and Philosophy category; in 2009 she again received the Laurence Olivier Award for the performances Café Müller and The Rite of Spring.

Peter Pabst

Born in 1944, he studied Costume and Scenic Design at Werkschulen to Cologne from 1969 to 1973. Hired by the Schauspielhaus Bochum in 1973, he remained there until 1979, working mainly with directors Peter Zadek and Augusto Fernandes. Among other things he designed costumes for Zadek's productions Professor Unrat and Hedda Gabler, the sets and costumes for Othello at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, and for Spring Awakening and Hamlet to Bochum. For Fernandes he designed the costumes for Garcia Lorca's Donna Rosita nubile and The Great Zenobia, as well as the sets and costumes for The House of Bernarda Alba.
Since 1979 he has worked as a set and costume designer for major theater, opera, television, and film productions.
Since 1980 he has collaborated with Pina Bausch and is the author of the sets for all Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch productions from then to the present.

Marion Cito

Born to Berlin, she studied dance with Tatjana Gsovsky. Her first engagement was with the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 1954. From 1960 she worked as prima ballerina with Tatjana Gsovsky, George Balanchine, Kenneth McMillan, Serge Lifar, John Cranko, Antony Tudor. In 1972 she settled to Darmstadt with Gerhard Bohner.
In 1975 she joined to Pina Bausch's company, initially as a dancer, later as the choreographer's assistant, and since 1980 she has been costume designer for all Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch creations.

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