<img src="https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/08/0/0/0/0/664/0/75/0/f15622b_1691496662456-vollmond-gp-8-6-2023-by-evangelos-rodoulis-20.jpg" srcset=" https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/08/0/0/0/0/556/0/75/0/f15622b_1691496662456-vollmond-gp-8-6-2023-by-evangelos-rodoulis-20.jpg 556w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/08/0/0/0/0/600/0/75/0/f15622b_1691496662456-vollmond-gp-8-6-2023-by-evangelos-rodoulis-20.jpg 600w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/08/0/0/0/0/664/0/75/0/f15622b_1691496662456-vollmond-gp-8-6-2023-by-evangelos-rodoulis-20.jpg 664w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/08/0/0/0/0/700/0/75/0/f15622b_1691496662456-vollmond-gp-8-6-2023-by-evangelos-rodoulis-20.jpg 700w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/08/0/0/0/0/800/0/75/0/f15622b_1691496662456-vollmond-gp-8-6-2023-by-evangelos-rodoulis-20.jpg 800w" sizes="(min-width: 1024px) 556px, 100vw" alt="" vollmond,"="" by="" pina="" bausch."="" width="100%" height="auto">
On the set of Vollmond ("full moon" in German), a sumptuous performance created in 2006 by choreographer Pina Bausch and presented a year later at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, it rains buckets, long and hard. Beside a huge, shiny black rock, soon to be dripping in water, a small river creeps by, while an enormous pond gradually widens. The full moon brings about an overflow of elements. And, as water was the German artist's favorite subject, the sky is weeping and spitting.
This torrential downpour, created by set designer Peter Pabst, provides a particularly slippery playground for the 12 performers in this oddly playful and harsh piece. With Bausch, the metamorphosis of the stage into a landscape, akin to a plastic installation or living land art, moves the choreographic gesture toward new horizons. It forces the dancers to adapt to the terrain, which is often difficult, uneven, slippery and dangerous. "The set always arrived very late with Pina, and the rain would come at the last minute too," recalled Helena Pikon, a leading performer since 1981 and now a rehearsal director with the company. "It was a nuisance, a problem. But at the same time, that was the beauty of it, its truth, because we had to make the best of the situation."
Hair dripping, pants, shirts and long dresses laden with liters of water, the performers – especially the women – battle with the elements as much as with their clothes. And how marvelous to see the splashes created by their bodies, in a thousand droplets as bright as diamonds under the spotlight! But the sensual, sometimes even erotic flavor of this struggle made sublime by Bausch's writing, its enveloping arms and infinite spirals, is sometimes tinged with bitterness. "Pina didn't talk much about the context in which she created her pieces, nor about what preoccupied her in the world, but there was always a link between her performances and the state of society," Pikon confided. "I remember that this was around the time of Hurricane Katrina, in August 2005, and this natural disaster, with its phenomenal flooding, is present for me in my vision of the piece. When I dance in the water and take water in my hands, I sometimes see blood in it."
The aquatic images in Vollmond are ambivalent. Bodies swim in single file, but others glide like corpses; a man drags a woman clinging to a piece of wood. "I sometimes felt like the survivor of a disaster, of a sinking ship," she continued. Fortunately, every situation is reversible for Bausch. Soon, an immense and savage water battle sweeps up the dancers, who spray each other with large torrents of water. It's a rush of pleasure and renewed energy, of rebirth, rain, death, life!