Review: Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Kontakthof ★★★★★

Kontakthof, which loosely translates as ‘courtyard of contact’, premiered in 1978 and is often described as one of the late German choreographer’s signature pieces. At the time Pina Bausch was still developing her particular brand of tanztheater, or dance theatre, which was to become hugely influential, while remaining unique and inimitable.

The premise of Kontakthof is simple: people meet in a bare, uninspiring municipal hall seeking human contact, or even love. But, of course, this being Pina Bausch what develops is far from simple.

As the lights go up we see 11 men in suits and 11 women in brightly coloured satin dresses wearing Bausch’s trademark high heels, all sitting on a row of chairs at the back. Slowly one tall statuesque woman in red, with long blond hair (the very striking Emma Barrowman), sashays forward and stands downstage offering herself for examination. Front. Sideways. Smile. Teeth. Hands.

She needs our approval of her looks even before she starts performing.

Gradually others follow, first the women, then the men. And little by little, to a soundtrack of 1920s and 30s popular songs, some jazz and boogie-woogie, this orderly behaviour begins to dissipate. What follows, over three stamina-testing hours (with one brief interval), is a series of encounters and missed opportunities, where fears, uncontrolled desires, inevitable disappointments and not a little violence come to the fore in expressionistic tableaux, which can be funny, deeply uncomfortable and all shades in between.

In many ways Kontakthof is a piece of its time, and yet it still speaks to us today. Its sentiments are universal, even if teaching it to a mostly brand-new cast (only four of the 22 had performed it before) entailed, in the words of the company’s current director Bettina Wagner-Bergelt, the need to discuss many of the issues it raises.

More than 40 years after Kontakthof’s genesis, our approach to issues such as sexism, racism and cultural appropriation has evolved immeasurably, and so our reaction as audiences – and indeed that of young performers – is very different.

So, for example, one of the final scenes, where a motionless woman in a light pink shift is pawed, and felt and slapped and passed around by a group of feral men is almost unbearable to watch, as it goes on and on until you want to shout ‘stop!’ It's unlikely such a sustained scene would be choreographed today.

Equally extended, and funnier with every repetition, is the gag where a succession of women scrounge coins from the front row of the audience, so that they can take a ride on a rather battered mechanical horse.

Kontakthof is a work of extremes and contrasts. And then, of course, there are the parades, another trademark of Pina Bausch’s work, where the dancers file on, executing a series of repetitive arm gestures (pictured top). In this work we are treated to a few, all quite hypnotic.

A final word for the dancers, a multinational collection of totally committed and, to the last person, enthralling performers.