Pina Bausch’s Cafe Muller and The Rite of Spring

As a dancer myself and lover of theater, I was fascinated by both of Bausch’s pieces. Although The Rite of Spring was a more conventional piece, it still had an absurd, modern element to it that truly speaks to Bausch’s theatrical ballet style. As an audience member, the pieces challenged me to see the bigger picture beyond the scenes taking place in the performance. For example, in Cafe Muller, I believe that Bausch wanted observers to think about power roles and interpersonal dependence of relationships. It would also have been important to understand the context, as Bausch partially grew up observing people interact in her parents’ cafe. The positioning on chairs on stage was interesting; the ability of the dancers to accommodate their choreography to these moving set pieces was also impressive. Furthermore, in The Rite of Spring, there was certainly the question as to why Bausch chose to put soil on the floor and emphasize this red dress. To compare the two, Cafe Muller was much more abstract, with its repetitive movements, unorthodox bodily throwing, and overall discombobulation. There was lack of unity amongst the dancers. Meanwhile, in The Rite of Spring, dancers were typically unified, whether it was by group, sex, or attire color. The movements were much more fluid and traditional and the dancers took on roles more typically associated with their sex. For instance, men typically lifted women. However, it was still unorthodox in that there was nudity. Although contemporary audiences tend to accept this, a woman stepping out of her gender role in a classical ballet piece would have been viewed as offensive or crude.