#pina-bausch

#pina-bausch

Legendary German choreographer Pina Bausch once famously said she was less interested in how people move than she was in what moves them. It is this idea that lies at the heart of Sweet Mambo, Bausch's beautiful, emotionally intense penultimate work, which debuted in 2008 but has taken nearly 20 years to make its debut on the London stage this week. Created in the final two years of Bausch's life, Sweet Mambo continues to build on her key recurring themes of desire, devotion, submission, power and melancholy, making it both a culmination and a continuation of her artistic legacy.

Pina Bausch had a pair of secret weapons in Matthias Burkert and Andreas Eisenschneider, who jointly sought out music to match her uncanny dance-theatre and make it so indelible. In Sweet Mambo, the German choreographer's 2008 production for Tanztheater Wuppertal, their eclectic compilation complements the seductive elegance of set designer Peter Pabst's huge, billowing white drapes and the sumptuous gowns provided by Marion Cito.

Theatres are haunted houses: on any stage, the ghosts of past performances can rise. At the opera house in Wuppertal, North Rhine-Westphalia, you can imagine the decades-ago premieres of Pina Bausch's first potent tanztheater shows, which left audiences either enraptured or slamming the exit door. An original cast member may still appear in revivals today, giving a tantalising link to the history of a company now packed with dancers who joined after the German choreographer's death in 2009.