Kontakthof – Echoes of ’78

Rolf Borzik’s performance recording inspired the choreographer, director, dancer and video artist Meryl Tankard to complement Pina Bausch’s dance piece, which has achieved cult status over the years, by adding a cineastic level. She abridged the raw video material without curtailing either the essence of the work or Bausch’s intentions, and invited dancers from the original cast to enter into a dialogue with their younger selves, each other and the absent colleagues by way of the projections. An emotional show that roots Bausch’s seminal dance theatre in the present day. Rather than ignoring the gaps in the ensemble, it renders the absence of former companions painfully palpable and touchingly deals with ageing and loss.

Statement of the Jury

Pina Bausch’s 1978 piece “Kontakthof” is one of the legendary, almost cultishly worshipped works with which she revolutionised dance theatre in those days. In the face of this overwhelming background, Meryl Tankard’s appropriation, created 46 years later, at first glance might seem to be a work that aims to memorialise Pina Bausch. This impression, however, is misleading. Tankard was among the original “Kontakthof”-ensemble in 1978 and now dances parts of the initial choreography with eight other members of the former company. She combines excerpts of historic “Kontakthof”-recordings with the movements of the aged dancers. What emerges is a complex and magical dialogue between past and present that consistently defies all classification.

Tojuror Sascha Westphal’s video statement on “Kontakthof – Echoes of ’78” (in German)