What we do
Pina Bausch left behind a complex and extensive artistic legacy. In accordance with her wishes her son Salomon Bausch has placed it in a charitable foundation which holds the copyright to her pieces and choreographies as well as Rolf Borzik’s set designs and costumes. It also owns materials relating to over forty-six pieces: books of directions, production paperwork, technical plans, press clippings, programmes, posters, photographs, sketches and around 7,500 videos.
Hand in hand with the Tanztheater Wuppertal, the foundation is cataloguing this enormous inventory, examining all the material and evaluating it. The videos and all important papers are being digitised. This fundamental stage of archiving is being funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation), by the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia and by the Dr. Werner Jackstädt foundation based in Wuppertal.
Even more important are the dancers and their colleagues at the Tanztheater Wuppertal, because the wealth of Pina’s legacy is gathered in their bodies and minds. They possess precious experiences and invaluable knowledge. They are indispensible in preserving Pina’s pieces and continuing her search, because only they can tell the stories surrounding the pieces’ creation and pass on their experiences, thus ensuring that this knowledge is not forgotten.
To preserve this knowledge and secure the various types of material in one pool, the Pina Bausch Foundation has so far realised the following projects:
- Film documentation of the revival rehearsals for Two Cigarettes in the Dark
- Interviews with the senior citizens who performed Kontakthof
- The exhibition Rolf Borzik und das Tanztheater Pina Bausch
- Photographic documentation of costumes by Marion Cito, 650 to date
- Extensive documentation of many of Prof Peter Pabst’s set designs
- Conservation and digitisation of 120 historic video tapes from the 1970s.
This is only the start.