Café Müller and The Rite of the Spring in tension

A reading of Pina Bausch’s dance theatre from Walter Benjamin’s philosophy, and vice versa

Abstract

Café Müller and The Rite of Spring are two pieces of the Tanztheater Wuppertal, created by Pina Bausch, which are usually presented together in a single evening. It is possible to notice that this conjunction is not organized by what they have in common but by their differences and tensions. In this article, I aim to analyse these tensions from Walter Benjamin’s thought, considering that both Bausch and Benjamin, based on Brechtian theatre, aim to undo the illusion against the crisis of the experience and storytelling. Through interruption and fragmentation, they take distance from expressionism and from the attempt to recover a lost inward experience. The following question then arises: is it possible a mode of experience and storytelling without continuity? I suggest a reading of the different manoeuvres that help forge an urban mode of storytelling in Bausch’s work concerning the situation of experience in urban spaces. Likewise, taking into account that philosophy has traditionally neglected dance, this reconstruction allows to highlight and interpret some of Benjamin's sporadic references to this art form.