Pina Bausch and her choreography for “… como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si …” (Like moss on a stone) was truly intriguing. The dancers moved with fluidity and their movements looked nearly effortless. The Spanish music as well as the projection of settings during the second half helped bring out liveliness of the piece. The musicality, the costuming and the lighting all stitched the show together. The moments of comedy inserted into the show helped relieve some tension.
Pina Bausch’s choreography has some elements of Post Modern Dance, but I would not consider it Post Modern dance. Post Modern Dance is a 20th century dance movement that focuses on the natural movement of the body. In Pina Bausch’s choreography, this can be clearly seen. The dancers move with fluidity that every movement seems easy and effortless. Usually Post Modern Dances are minimalistic and this can be seen in the setting of this piece (a white stage), however Bausch’s choreography also differs greatly from the elements of Post Modern Dance. In Post Modern Dance, everything is minimalistic (the costumes, the setting, the dance, the music), however in Bausch’s choreography this was not the case. Musicality played a big role in this piece and I believe that the piece was performed for the audience and not for the dancers. Bausch’s use of music and costumes as part of the overall picture of the dance makes me believe that Bausch’s choreography is not that of Post Modern Dance.
I agree with Stella that Pina’s piece “… como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si …” didn’t fit perfectly into the category of post-modern dance. Though her dance definitely wasn’t a formal ballet piece and was very non-traditional, she kept many of the elements of dance the post-modern dance chooses to reject, like musicality, formal choreography, trained dancers, props, elaborate costumes, etc.
Post-modern dance follows the idea of dance for the sake of dance, for the appreciation of simple everyday movement and untrained technique. It examines the unique forms and potential of the human body and emphasizes organic movements, without all of the excessive features of a performance like a specific message/story, the lighting, props, and costumes to create a visual spectacle, and a dependance on music. However, I would say (as Stella pointed out) that Pina embraced a lot of these things.
Pina’s piece WAS trying to convey a message — portraying male-female interacting and how women are objectified by men, gaining their power over men (and sometimes struggling) as they accept themselves as objects of male desire. Little scenarios between the dancers showed playfulness, seduction, manipulation, frustration, and loss. There was definitely more going on than an appreciation of the dancers’ forms. The choreography also utilized technique, and was beautiful and expressive. Though the movements were flowing and fluid, clearly they were not “pedestrian” movements that anyone could perform–the dancers were trained. Pina’s dancers used their entire bodies, in contact with the stage, props, and other dancers to tell their stories. This might be seen as more “modern” than post-modern.
There were definitely SOME elements that could be related to post-modern dance. When the dancers performed solos there was a lot of experimentation with movement in non-conventional ways, displaying the versatility and expressiveness of the human body. More abstract segments like the dropping of the stones was also very simplified and almost pedestrian.
Overall, the dance was very unique and difficult to categorize. Though Pina did depart from many of the conventions of dance, her piece did not represent all of the qualities of post-modern dance.
I agree with Stella that Pina Bausch’s choreography for “… como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si …” does not fit into what we view as post-modern dance. In post-modern dance, there is a a focus on the dance and the raw movements of the dancers. It didn’t include flashy lights, change in backgrounds, cracking floors or the props that were used. In Pina’s piece, the dancers weren’t always dancing – they sometimes stood still, sat down and they even talked to the audience at some point. It seemed like the audience was included in the performance because the dancers and the choreography were able to evoke such (audible) emotions from the audience. This is definitely something that is not characteristic of post-modern dance.
There were some parts of the piece that reminded me of post-modern dance, however. Movements that seem like anyone could do them were included, like hanging upside down on a rope and being able to climb across it. Even though this is probably foreign to us and doesn’t seem like ‘dance’, it was still part of the performance.
In the end, it’s similar to how a square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not a square; although we can distinguish elements in Pina Bausch’s choreography to be similar to that of post-modern dance, it is not fully post-modern.