Pia Bausch Rite Of Spring

Pina Bausch 's version of Le Sacre du Printemps or The Rite of Spring has a reputation as one of the best versions ever done . The Russian composer Igor Stravinsky composed the original piece. He wrote it for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev 's Ballets Russes Company . Vaslav Nijinsky was the original choreographer . The Rite of Spring tells the story of a ritual tribe or a society celebrating the advent of spring by sacrificing a maiden to revive the sun, and to lengthen the days for growing of crops . The original piece received a negative reaction from the audience who considered the music mere noise and the dance as an ugly parody of traditional ballet . At the time the audience was not ready for Nijinsky 's "radical departure

However, as Pina Bausch argues, she is terrified of violence, but she is interested in understanding the attacker. Bausch 's Rite depicts an image of a misogynist society, but she rejects it by showing women being capable of performing actions traditionally thought of as purely masculine ones. For example, in the scene where the Sage chooses a victim, the women one by one walk slowly towards him with fear in their eyes with the red dress in their hands. This scene shows clear gender dominance depicted by the Sage grabbing these helpless. Nevertheless, this scene is immediately followed by a scene where both men and women dancers perform a physically demanding routine. The women in this routine exhibit same level of physical and emotional strength as the men, suggesting that women are inherently as strong as men, but they are trapped in roles enforced by their society . Pina Bausch shows her audience those social traps but she leaves it to them to make their choice how to react to them. Furthermore, one can argue that men in Bausch 's interpretation are also victims of that society. They do not seem like they derive any pleasure from their treatment to women. They seem as pitiful as the women, as if they are compelled by invisible forces to perform their duties. Bausch depicts an image of a despondent community bounded by rules made perhaps many generations ago. This is clear in the scene where the men exhaust themselves running from one woman to the other with all their

I think that Pina Bausch 's incredible version of the Rite offers its audience exactly what the victims lacked, choice. She does not force on us any solutions, but she shows us a reality and trusts us to make our interpretation and reactions derived from our own realities meeting hers. However, her offer misses one important element. She offers her viewers an account of the majority, or the main characters, but she leaves out the opposition. Beside the clear stratification between men and women as group, there is not any indication of individualism within either group. I imagine that even in a pagan society as the one depicted in the Rite, there are men and women who oppose those practices however few they are, and however little impact they have. She excludes voices of women who rejected those practices and shows an image of a conforming community. She excludes perspectives of young women who usually are the source of revolutions. She excludes the voices of progressive men who believe in equality between genders. Finally, she excludes voices of those who do not identify themselves with traditional gender classification. As I was watching the performance, I was hoping to see the women making any gesture of discussing their situation in the scene where they gather filled with fear waiting passively for the Sage to choose one of them. I was disappointed to see them instead nudge each other out of the circle of safety they made for themselves however