Le Sacre du printemps / common ground[s].

It all began on a beach in Senegal, between the sand and the blue sea. Around to a large rectangle the dancers, boys in dark pants and girls in white blouses. The meandering melody of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring starts, and when the rhythmic sounds of the strings enter, from those peculiar expressionist ports de bras, one arm overhead, one along the body drawing a barely noticeable curve you immediately recognize the mark of Pina Bausch.

We learned to about it first on video than in the theater this Le Sacre du printemps with African dancers. And immediately it was general enthusiasm. That general rehearsal footage in Senegal went around the dance world. From the rehearsal to the presentation of the show in the theater was Covid's involvement, and many feared there would be nothing more than that video testimony.

But now we are ready to to see them live, on the stage of the Teatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti, in an enclosed venue where even more dance becomes a compulsion to move from which one cannot escape. So it was 1975 when the piece debuted to Wuppertal, more than fifty years ago. The fact is that such a sincere and cruel look at human relations on the clash between man and woman never ceases to shock. After all, shocking, in 1913, was Stravinsky's music and Nijinsky's original choreography that from then carries with it the sulfurous scent of modernity.

But now here we are ready to witness to this great feat. The initiative is by Mama Africa, the great Germaine Acogny creator of the Ecole des Sables to Dakar, Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale, with the Pina Bausch Foundation and Sadler's Wells Theater.

Until now Bausch's Sagra, in addition to the Wuppertal company, was in the repertoire of the Paris Opera and the Flanders Ballet. Solomon Bausch, Pina's son, corroborates this: "For a long time Pina Bausch's pieces were danced mainly at the Tanztheater Wuppertal, and many performers were in the company for years, even decades. Few outside the company had the opportunity to dance these pieces. The project started at the suggestion of Jorge Puerta Armenta from Pina's company." In the rehearsal videos with the African dancers, he is seen teaching the steps and movements to the group, and already this is an immersive experience that we recommend to YouTube or Vimeo goers. Nothing wild, as one might trivially expect. The confrontation between rough, sacrificial man and woman here becomes an energy constantly held in check. There is almost terror among the women in the passing of the red cloth that will become a gown for the chosen one, the one destined for death. And her final solo, the collapsing to ground, engages and excites. The push down, the call of the earth, abolished lightness, unites so much contemporary European and African dance. The performers develop a strong intensity and all demonstrate good training.

A reflection on the relationship between European contemporary dance and Africa remains open. Is importing Bausch's Sagra into African bodies for the use, above all we imagine, of the European spectator, an operation that smacks of neocolonialism or does it rather serve to to demonstrate how profound Bausch's choreographic thought is, even if dropped into a foreign reality?

But to the dancers involved and the development of contemporary African dance, it is hard to say, if we want to be a bit Taliban, how much this project serves, if not to suffer the imposition of European models. Rather it satisfies that "colonialist syndrome," that need to "compensate" that often resurfaces even in culture and performance. Since the days of Joséphine Baker, the black, ebony, sensual or adrenaline-filled body of energy and exoticism has been an object of aesthetic, if not erotic, consumption for the white spectator. This is something we have to take into account. And Bill T. Jones, for example, has reiterated this in many of his busy shows such as Last Supper at Uncle Tom's Cabin. It is true that simultaneously we have witnessed to a reverse phenomenon, the path of appropriation of white dance culture from by blacks, and this Sagra can be an example. One name for all Misty Copeland of the American Ballet Theatre and her battle for being given roles from étoile. Equally smacks of vindication is the gaudy pageantry of certain African American stars' attire. This is pointed out by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, who choreographed the video Apeshit, featuring Beyoncé and Jay-Z covered in gowns and glittering jewels in a treasure chest of beauty and wealth, at the Louvre Museum, to Paris: "Europe built its wealth thanks in part to the exploitation of the African continent and slavery. And it brings us to to think about emigration from Africa to Europe today. There is a whole part of European history that you don't learn well to school. But some of the actions of our ancestors there is from not to be proud of, and a lot of wealth we have won elsewhere. All this has created a kind of credit that to will have to be questioned at some point. to times it is the children who pay for the mistakes of their parents, but that is how it is. And so there is a need from for Europe to wake up and understand that it cannot just take without sharing."

And the Senegalese Sagra is certainly no compensation, nor were many operations from part of the French nouvelle danse intent to on exporting their models to Africa or to inviting African choreographers to France. How to help African contemporary dance to develop is an issue and not imposing its own choreographic development is not easy, it is true. An example from follow carefully instead is that of Dada Masilo who introduces and includes European themes in an African structure. Born in South Africa, a to Brussels training with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, she narrates blockbusters of the European repertoire with a thoroughly African look and approach: the black dancers doing Zulu steps in Swan Lake, the feminist approach in Carmen, the spirits of ancestors in Giselle.

Germaine Acogny and Malou Airaudo, two papesses of contemporary dance, both interpreters of the Sacre on different occasions and in different ways. Airaudo with Pina to Wuppertal, Acogny (Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale) with Olivier Dubois in Mon élue noire (My Black Elect). Two extraordinary lives, full of experiences. It is dedicated all to them two the second part of Common Ground[s], a new work conceived, performed and inspired by the lives of two extraordinary women. The two artists explore their shared stories and emotional experiences in a show that sees them together on stage for the first time.

Sergio Trombetta