Pina Bausch

Pina Bausch

Born in Solingmen, Germany in 1940

-       American Theatre director

-       Artistic director of the SITI Company

-       Developed the technique ‘Viewpoints’

-       Has written several performance works

-       First production, Fragment, in 1968

-       Initially people did not understand her dancing and the dancers rebelled due to the ‘lack’ of dancing but intrigued people brought her fame

Died of lung cancer in 2009

Influences on Pina Bausch

-       Anthony Tudor; instructor of Julliard

-        Psychological dancing

-       La bahn (?)

Key Philosophies

-       Redefine dance; created ‘Dance Theater’

-       Doesn’t focus on the end point; creates it through the experiences of the dancers in her company

-       Connect with the dancers; what do they feel?

-       Radically different performances

-       A lot of solo pieces to zoom into specific characteristics

-       Themes

-       Interactions between men and women

-       Fascinating architecture

Manifestations of the Philosophy

-       Collaborated with…

-       Rolf Bersik

-        Met at school and the first person to agree that the current styling wasn’t right for her vision for the show

-       Marion Cito

-        After Bersik passed away, she took over the costuming

-        Started off as Bausch’s assistant

-        Explored balance between the elegant and everyday yet still rich and vibrant

-        Bertolt Brecht & Kurt Weill

l   Inspired Sean [couldn’t see the rest]

-       Techniques incorporated

-        Repetition

-        Different ethnicities; people speaking in their mother tongue

-        Speech (unorthodox for dances; ‘wasn’t true dance’)

-        Emphasis on the upper body

-       1978 Café Muller

-        Deserted café with scattered tables and chairs spread out the dancers stumble into

-       1978 Rite of spring

-        The stage is completely covered in soil

-       1978 Kostakhlof

-        Set in a drab municipal hall. All the actions are very minimalistic. The original voices was done with dancers aged 50 and up.

-       Theatre group established: Tanztheatre Wuppertal

-        Originated as Wuppertal Ballet, a traditional company near her birth town of Solingen

-        Performances were radically different

-        Works generate experiences they do not teach

-        Members of her ensemble were always different from one another, and never resembled previous ensembles

Bertolt Brecht Handout

Bertolt Brecht

A Brief Timeline

• 1898: Bertolt Brecht is born in Augsburg, Germany on February 10^th
• 1914: World War I breaks out
• 1916: Newspapers begin publishing his work under the title ‘Bert Brecht’
• 1917: At his father’s recommendation, enrolled in a medical course at Munich University
• Inspired by Arthur Kustcher to study drama and theatre
• 1918: ‘Baal’, first theatrical piece
• 1918: World War I ends
• 1919: ‘Drums in the Night’, second theatrical piece
• 1918: World War II ends
• 1919: Brecht and Paula Banholzer have a son
• 1922: Brecht is awarded the prestigious Kleist Prize for his first three plays
• “[Brecht's] language is vivid without being deliberately poetic, symbolical without being over literary. Brecht is a dramatist because his language is felt physically and in the round”
• 1922: Married Viennese opera singer Marianne Zoff
• 1923: Brecth and his wife had a daughter, Hanne Hiob who became a successful actress
• 1930: First performance of one of his most famous works, ‘The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahoganny’
• 1930: Remarried with Helene Weigel, who would be the future Mother Courage
• 1939: World War II breaks out
• 1939: ‘Mother Courage and Her Children’
• 1943: ‘Hangmen Also Die!’ first screenplay, first Hollywood film
• Collaboration with Hanns Eisler
• Nominated for Academy Award for Musical Score
• 1945: World War II ends
• 1956: Bertolt Brecht passes away on August 14^th

History and Influences on the Practitioner

• Family – his family had a large influence on Brecht not only as a person but also as a theatre practitioner
• Born to a devout Protestant mother and a Catholic father, religion played a large role in Brecht’s life.
• His mother was the center of his religious teachings; she eventually became the model for the ‘self-denying woman’ who features in many of his works
• His father was the one to get him into a medical course in university, which was the direct lead into his career in theatre

• Street Theatre – looking at everyday life, the typical nine-to-five work day, and the absurdity of how people live their lives; this routine and all these rehearsed actions are ones actors must be aware of.
• The contrast of Mother Courage’s disparity and misfortune to our everyday problems yesterday and tomorrow

• Changes in the World – looking at the changes in the world; promote non-bias into problematic events that could or have happened in people’s lives
• World War I
• World War II
• Spread of Marxism

• Influence of Marxism – “order from chaos”; only in utter chaos can the world find order
• “When I read Marx’s Capital, I understood my plays”
  
  

Key Philosophies

• Due to Marxist influence, Brecht strongly believed in devising new ideas and methods out of chaos – the same went for the ideas of his plays. Order is found in chaos. Answers are found in the randomness.

• He wanted a theatre where the audience could view the situation on the stage with no personal or emotional connections – so that they could take a moment to see and analyze the happenings – don’t get absorbed in them, but look at them objectively.
• a theatre where the audience thinks critically of the happening events
• the audience must know that they are watching a play and that the characters are played by actors

• ‘Verfremdungseffekt’
• Poorly translated by most into ‘alienation’, the actual concept refers to the use of the stage, lighting, and methodology of a performance to distance the audience emotionally

Manifestation of the Philosophy Theatrically

• Gestus – tableaus or motions that are symbolic of the character using it
• Mother Courage’s Silent Scream

• Masks – remove the emotional connection from the audience by removing facial expressions and connections

• Lighting – have the audience aware that the actors are merely performing by having unnatural lighting; lights are on, even in the audience

• Set and Stage – all signs of the production are visible to the audience
• scaffold, equipment, and stage crew are all visible
• the audience sees the backstage-work and knows it is a stage production
• often there is no set and only a projection on a screen
• props are purely optional in Brechtian theatre; pantomime is common

• Placards
• highlight situations
• emphasize key words to the audience
• characters either hold placards or the captions are projected on a screen

• Music
• Bursting into song to, again, prevent the audience from getting too immersed in the play

Collaborators

Lion Feuchtwanger

• German novelist and playwright
• First collaborative attempt
• Together, they adapted Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II into a play in 1924
• “the germ of the conception of epic theatre”

Hanns Eisler

• Austrian composer
• Wrote music for several of Brecht’s plays
• Shared their interest and influence by Marxism
• They were life-long collaborators

Kurt Weill

• German composer
• ‘Threepenny Opera’ (1928)
• ‘Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny’ (1930)
• One of Brecht’s most famous and controversial works
• A political-satire

Casper Neher

• Former classmate and life-long friend
• Austrian-German scenographer and librettist
• Examples of Works Collaborated on:
• 1923. In the Jungle at the Residenztheater in Munich
• 1924. The Life of Edward II of England at the Munich Kammerspiele; dir. Brecht
• 1926. Baal at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin
• 1927. The Little Mahagonny at the Deutsche Kammermusik Festival at Baden-Baden; dir. Brecht
• 1928. The Threepenny Opera at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin
• 1928. Carmen by Georges Bizet at the Kroll Opera House in Berlin
• 1929. Pioneers in Ingolstadt by Marieluise Fleißer at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin; dir. Brecht and Jacob Geis
• 1949. Mr Puntila and his Man Matti at the Berliner Ensemble in East Berlin.

Edwin Piscator

• Friend and co-creator of epic theatre
• Reviser of existing philosophies
• Developer of the set ideas; projected setting, visible scaffolding, etc.

Works Cited

Brecht, Bertolt, and Eric Bentley. Mother Courage and Her Children. New York: Samuel French,

1987. Print.

Brecht, Bertolt, and John Willett. Brecht on Theatre. New York: Hill and Wang, 1992. Print.

"Baal (play)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 20 Nov. 2012. Web. 27 Nov. 2012.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baal_(play)>.

"Bertolt Brecht Timeline." Bertolt Brecht Timeline. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2012.

<http://www.theatredatabase.com/20th_century/bertolt_brecht_timeline.html>.

Ellis, Jessica, and Bronwyn Harris. WiseGeek. Conjecture, n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2012.

<http://www.wisegeek.com/who-was-bertolt-brecht.htm>.

"Epic Theatre." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Nov. 2012. Web. 27 Nov. 2012.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_theatre>.

Five Truths. Dir. Katie Mitchell. Perf. Michelle Terry. National Theatre Organization, 2011. DVD.

"Hanns Eisler: Life." Hanns Eisler: Life. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2012.

<http://eislermusic.com/life.htm>.