Although both “Cafe Muller” and “The Rite of Spring” were both choreographed by Pina Bausch, they are very different pieces. “The Rite of Spring” is a more conventional piece with some experimenting in the style of the movements, while “Cafe Muller” is a wholly experimental piece.
Cafe Muller, to me, looked less like a dance and more of a living sculpture, like the “Threshold” performance at the High Line. Although the movements seemed to have a rhyme and reason behind them, they weren’t really set to any music or had much form in them. A lot of the movements seemed very erratic with some of the dancers flailing about on the floor on occasion. They make a heavy use of repetitive movements; enough to make me feel that it was part of, if not the, central message of the piece. There was not much music to the piece, and if there was, it didn’t seem to be a large component of it. To me, this piece felt like a collection of how people deal with bad situation. There’s one person who’s left to his/her devices, people that prioritize some people over others, some that try to bring back the past situation, and some that adapt to the situation so much their negative behavior becomes something they don’t think about anymore. The “sleepwalking” adds to this theme because it reminds us that this behavior is subconscious.
“The Rite of Spring” is a more “ballet-like” performance, where the movements were set to the music and they had more form. As a dancer, I was very impressed by how synchronized the 30 dancers on stage were on certain portions of the dance. The movements were definitely more harsh and aggressive than most ballet movements. To me “The Rite of Spring” seemed to be about ostracizing people based on something the person can’t control.
I really appreciate your idea of how some of the dance in Cafe Muller may have been influenced by bringing forward past situations and relationships. While watching this performance I also found myself wondering about how each character was connected to the next. The similarity in costume and movements between the dancer who remained in the corner for the majority of the piece and the woman who seemed to be one of the main points of foci led me to question if maybe they were supposed to depict the same person in two different time periods, or maybe two different generations of a family.