pina bausch

Pina Bausch died today in Wuppertal, Germany, the industrial town she has enlivened since 1972 with the work of her company, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch.  

Her work may be most known to the non-dance world by its appearance in the Almodovar film Talk to Her.  A scene from Cafe Muller appears in the opening.  Pina and another dancer wind around a room full of chairs with their hands out and eyes closed, wearing nightgowns.  A man tosses the chairs out of the way.  They cease on the wall stage right, and slide down.  Pina frightened me in that scene many years before I studied her work: she was very thin and severe, with great pain in her tense elbows, and a futile lifting of both legs just a few degrees from the floor before dropping them down to join the rest of her body.  Pina Bausch in that scene is depicted above. 

I have since been inspired by her other works, which depict people in bizarre action.  In Nelken, the floor is covered in carnations, and in one scene a man in a ball gown alone onstage is running around, shouting at the audience.  Another scene, I believe this is from Muller, has a woman in a very regular dress standing center, while ten or so men go about the deliberate work of touching her, dissociative and nonsexual, on the nose, the forearm, the skirt-hem, the hair, and her body sways from all the hands though they each only exert slight force.  She combines normal elements to achieve the absurd, or perverts a single action by its repetition to surreal effect.  All the dancers are acting as people, not anything ethereal, no dancerly proportion of distance, and that is what is absorbing about these scenes.  

A few of my favorite segments I could find are below. 

Michael Jackson died

all i want

all i want to hear right now at all is either Going to California or the singles from 50 Cent's first album. I'm eating a excessive number of figs because they are outrageously delicious. Figs and milk and 50. I really miss years like 2003. Looking forward to my dad's commentary on whatever Power 92 is playing when I get home and we're driving somewhere together.

what goes on

Wednesday I'd slept at Jason's to avoid the miserable L train construction. We woke up and Stella went to work, I bought eggs and bacon and we used pancake mix I'd found in the bins at my old dorm and made a big breakfast. Dan and J were a lil grumpy until they got their little mcgriddles in their bellies.
We each swallowed an adderall from the upstairs drug dealer and walked from their apartment in Bushwick to Ridgewood, Queens. The porches looked like Urbana or the small brick homes looked like Chicago, and the desolate corners of expressway entrance ramps and car dealerships looked like Jefferson Park, Chicago. We turned south-west, walking through blocks and blocks of factories where there were no other pedestrians. Everything felt good, I guess that was the drug. I had energy and wanted nothing.
Walked to the Williamsburg Bridge, crossed into the city (walking the bridge takes 28 minutes). We'd walked something like nine miles when we landed on the Lower East Side. Jason found a batgammon set that I only just now remembered and realize I left at Home Sweet Home later.
Then were did we go... joined by Michael Quattlebaum and a boy named Nanu we walked to a zine release party, and then the Soho Grand Hotel. I bought a tank top; my shirt had stayed just slightly sweaty all day (the shirt was left at the club too, shit). At Nanu's place in TriBeCa there was a boy that looked like Willem Defoe and also a girl who looked like ugly Lady Gaga and is an alleged thief and a Japanese girl named Sayaka and a Mexican boy named Tom Pipol. I liked those last two a lot. We all drank. I had 2 drink and was wasted because I hadn't eaten. We went to Home Sweet Home for the goth night but I was too drunk to tell if it was fun or not or how long I stayed. When I left it was raining. Couldn't be bothered to untie my jacket from my purse, walked from below Delancy at Christie to 26th and 1st in that tank top, couldn't feel a thing.
It was a big New York day, and I was happy for it. I was so happy for so much of it.

Later I learned how sick my aunt Lydia is, and have felt very badly ever since. It is my intention to go back to Chicago after my class ends to spend time with my family; they are hurting very badly.

choices

Being home is so emotional. I tried to think of how to start this post and I started crying, nostalgic for something that happened a few hours ago. Sometimes the things that happen to me feel like they occur in memories already, I am looking at myself from outside and knowing that the whole scene will kill me, already kills me.
Tonight it is the scene after my parents left Seth's sister's condo, where we'd hosted them for dinner, and I went to gather my belongings to meet them down at the car. I was kneeling on the floor while Seth said goodbye to them, then he raced down the hall, and we hugged there on the floor, laughing from the relief and joy that the thing had gone well and my parents had warmed up.
I hate this, wondering whether I am doing the right thing. A little, I want to stay in Chicago where I don't have a job or any worries, only friends and family and the only task is to see them. Though this place isn't isn't easy; already I feel my own distance everywhere, and I feel terrified. I try to remember my life in New York as anything but uncomfortable lonely and difficult.
This has been the most acknowledgment I've given these feelings so far. I decided not to unwind all of it for as long as possible, because I know after I've thought everything out to myself I'll be a sobbing mess for the rest of my little time. Such small things can set off my regret.
My parents were themselves a bit choked up at the same moment I described earlier. As they left to bring the car around they observed to one another that now, I had had them over for dinner for the first time. Everyone's a big baby over here, everything is heartbreaking in Chicago. Maybe I'll be better, distracted at least, once I'm back on my grind in New York. I don't know what to do.

where-i-want-to

My bike tire needs to be changed. I hope when I go home I am at least as cute and cool as folks remember.
Today during my break from work, I walked over to Everyman Coffee with Sequoya and Logan, and we ran into Margo and Mike D. The place is becoming our breakroom away from work, all of us with our shirts changed for 40 minutes of sitting around listening to Sequoya talk about things that make him laugh (The Far Side). It was the first time I was late coming back to work. As we strode up the stairs we heard pages over the intercom: "Will Mike D report to register 11, Olivia report to register 9" and laughed and felt naughty (maybe just me on the latter). Tonight I am going to "girls' night" at Kristen St Claire's in Bed-Stuy, I bet we're going to talk about work crushes and eat ice cream :)
Friends in Chicago should be advised that I'm looking to have a potluck in a park between the 11-14th. Not all of the days, just one of them. So keep 4 days of your schedule clear until further specification.

yeschterday

The last week was a pain in the ass because I worked too much and drank too little. I kept trying to call my boyfriend but he has a million friends and is always doing things like inviting people over to watch things on the projector at his sister's condo (where he is house-sitting for a couple months). I felt very alone sometimes, even when people were around: Jason slept over one night but just KEPT SLEEPING, all day I was alone in my room, unable to leave or convince him to wake up. To compensate I keep collecting dumb crushes, one-per-week.
This week will be better because I'm going to Bennington today for a couple days, and finally at the end of the week I'll be home again. Just picked up some crisp white tees (they are all I wear, and my present ones are getting dingy or as my mom would say "Irish white") and some dip-dyed ankle socks for my journeys. See you soon, everyone I love.