Interview with Daphnis Kokkinos, 27/9/2023 (1/2)

How did you start dancing?

I’m not entirely sure why I wanted to dance. I don’t know the reason, but I do know how it began. I was 15, living in Heraklion, our city in Crete. I was walking down the street when I suddenly heard piano music coming from a window. I didn’t know exactly what it was, but I thought, 'How interesting! I think I want to go there.' So I went into this ballet school. I didn’t tell my parents anything. The teacher was delighted to have a boy in the class — I was the only one — and she was thrilled to finally have a prince. I was very happy too, but unfortunately our happiness lasted only a week. The parents of the other girls didn’t want me there. They told the teacher: 'Either he leaves, or the girls won’t come back.' So after a week I had to stop. There was no other way to study ballet in Crete. I finished high school, and after graduation I could go to Athens. One night I took the boat to Athens — again without telling my parents. That is when I began dancing and working in theatre. Thankfully, my parents were very supportive and helped me a lot. After a year in a private school, I applied to the national school. There is only one national dance school in Greece — the Greek National School of Dance (KSOT) in Athens. I went to the entrance exam and, strangely enough, they accepted me. That is when I began my studies there.

Greece is the birthplace of theatre. Did you see performances for children when you were young?

No, nothing at all. I come from a mountain village. I was about seven when electricity arrived. I am the sixth boy in my family — we are six brothers — and I am the youngest. All my brothers studied without electric light. I was lucky that by the time I was seven we finally had electricity. That meant no television; I didn’t watch anything as a child. When I was 15, I moved to town for high school, and every summer there was a festival with ballet and modern dance. That is when I first saw theatre and dance — at 15, 16, 17. Nothing was produced by the state of Crete. Even today there are no dance productions, no city company.

But you must have read classical literature anyway, right?

Of course — that is both our great strength and our weakness. Our culture is so strong: we are always learning about Plato, Socrates, the tragedies, the classics. But the problem is that we don’t look at what is happening now. We are very attached to what happened in the past. We should actually use our past to create something new today. This is happening in some places, but in Crete we still have a lot of work to do, especially in dance.

When did you come to Athens?

I was 18. It must have been 1983 — ten years before I joined Pina Bausch here.

You arrived in Athens and entered the school. What was the programme like? What did you study there?

For me, it was paradise. It was amazing. We were there all day, from 8:30 in the morning until sometimes 9:00 in the evening. The degree was a teaching qualification in dance. That meant that alongside ballet and contemporary practice, we also had many theoretical subjects. Every day we had ballet, contemporary, Graham and other techniques, plus folklore, eurhythmics, improvisation, and then theory: anatomy, dance history, art history, literature, ballet methodology, contemporary methodology — I think those were all the theory subjects. We worked and studied all day, choreographing and dancing. It was simply dancing, dancing, dancing for three years until you received your degree.

How were the opportunities for performing and for having guest teachers? Athens is a cosmopolitan city, so many companies must have come through. Did guest teachers also come to your academy?

Not very often, unfortunately. What was wonderful was that many famous companies performed in Athens: the Bolshoi, Martha Graham, many European companies. In the eighties there were not as many as today, or they were not yet as well known. American Ballet Theatre, Alvin Ailey — as far as I remember — they all came to Athens, but they only visited us once or twice because they never had time. They arrived, performed, and left. But we had the chance to watch the performances, which was wonderful. That is also how I first encountered Pina Bausch.

Did you see that one performance in Athens — if I remember correctly, in June 1987 — which was a state gift from Germany to Greece? Do you remember it? Did you see it?

Yes! That was Pina Bausch’s first time in Athens. We had no idea who she was. I had never heard of her. We heard that Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch was coming to Athens, performing at the Herodes Atticus Theatre — under the Acropolis. A beautiful theatre, 2,000 years old. I went with my classmate Artemis. We were, of course, right at the top — it is a huge theatre — and as students we always sat at the very top. They performed Café Müller and The Rite of Spring. We had no idea what we were about to see. We sat there, and suddenly Café Müller began. I think I stopped breathing for the entire piece. Then they left the stage and placed soil on the ground. 'What is this earth doing here? Where will they dance?' And when The Rite of Spring began, I was in shock. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The only thing I thought and felt was: 'I want to go there. I belong there. I don’t want anything else. That is where I belong.' I was absolutely certain. It’s unbelievable — I was 20 years old, and I knew I belonged there. After the performance I wanted to thank this lady. Absolutely. I went backstage and saw Pina Bausch, smoking a cigarette, dressed in black. I said to myself, 'I must say thank you.' I went to her, shook her hand, and kissed her — I remember reaching up to kiss her. I said, 'Thank you very much!' and ran away. That was my first encounter with Pina Bausch. But the story continues. Many years later — I think in 2001 or 2002 — we performed 1980 in Athens. It was my first time back in Athens with Pina. Before the performance I was extremely nervous because my family was there — my mother, all my teachers, my classmates. I was terrified. My knees were shaking. I told Pina, 'I’m very nervous!' and she said, 'No one is there, relax.' I said, 'Yes, they’re all here.' It was very difficult for me. And suddenly I realised that Pina was standing exactly where I had greeted her as a student — at the same wall, dressed in black, cigarette in hand. I told her, 'Pina, I met you here when I was a student, right after your performance.' She said, 'Oh, let’s take a photo.' So we took a photo right before the performance. I am in my 1980 costume; Pina is dressed in black, with a cigarette. She smiles and looks beautiful. And what was strange for me: in the photo she is shorter than I am, but in my memory she was taller. In reality she was smaller. I was surprised — I always thought she was taller than me. But she is so beautiful. I can show you the photo afterwards. It is very, very nice. Thankfully she had the idea to take these photos, because that moment became very important to me.

How beautiful. What we didn’t mention is that it is an open-air theatre. Were there any special aspects when you danced 1980 outdoors?

The theatre is enormous. I had danced there before, when I was still in school, with another company. It is unbelievable to stand on that stage. When you are on stage, you can see the Acropolis at the same time — only the artists can see it, not the audience, because it is behind them. But for us, the Acropolis is right in front. Sometimes there is a full moon — it is unbelievable. The theatre is an amphitheatre; it is pure magic. And with the grass from 1980 come many flies and mosquitoes, because of the grass and the lights. Then, when we walked up with the line dance between the audience and the marble stairs — my mother and my classmates were all there. It was unbelievable. Truly unbelievable. The theatre is beautiful, fantastic — really extraordinary.

We’re still in Athens. You had completed the programme. What were your first professional engagements?

One of my teachers, Jojo Nikolodis, had studied in Germany and also in Switzerland, I think. She taught eurhythmics at the school. She had founded a company back in the 1960s, and when I finished school she reopened it. The company focused on the Chorus in ancient Greek tragedies — not the protagonists, not Oedipus or the Oresteia, but the Chorus, and sometimes duets like Orestes and Electra. Everything was connected to ancient Greek drama. For a year I danced there and also taught classes to my colleagues. That was my first year after graduation. A year later we heard — there was no Internet back then — that around Christmas Pina Bausch would hold auditions in Wuppertal. So in October 1988 I took a train from Athens to Wuppertal. It was my first time on a train and my first time leaving Greece. We had no trains in Crete. I had never taken a train in my life, and I had never travelled further than Athens. I took the train from Athens through what was then Yugoslavia, changed trains in Munich, and then Munich to Wuppertal‑Barmen. It was quite a journey.

When I arrived, I came straight here — to the opera house. I arrived at Barmen station. There was a lot of snow. I went out the wrong exit, the east side stairs, then walked back through the street into the main entrance with my two suitcases. Snow everywhere. I didn’t know where to go. The opera house is only ten metres away, but I didn’t know that. Should I go right or left? I decided to go left. But actually, to the right is Studio Lichtburg — Pina’s studio — plus the hotels, supermarkets, cafés. To the left there is a park, a car park, a garage, a bridge, and then a street with houses, all covered in snow. I don’t know why, but I kept walking. Suddenly I saw a small hotel. I went in, and the receptionist was Greek. So I had to go left! Back then the hotel cost 50 German Marks per night, but I only paid 30 because we were both Greek. That is probably why I had to go left. I stayed there Sunday and Monday because everything was closed. On Tuesday morning I came to the opera house. I immediately recognised that some people were dancers. I spoke to them, joined the class, and then we all went to Lichtburg together. There I met Pina Bausch. Mariko Aoyama brought me to her. She was sitting there with her usual cigarette. I said: 'Hello, my name is Daphnis, I am from Greece, and I love your work.' I have a photo of myself from that time — dressed in black and very, very green. I probably hadn’t eaten for four days, just some biscuits on the train. I was terrified — a different country, a different language, I knew no one. She saw everything immediately. She noticed it all. She stood up, gave me a big hug — and that was it. You don’t need anything more. I’ll tell you something lovely. In Chile — six months before Pina left us — we were together. We were working on our last piece. One night we went to a restaurant, somewhere outside, at two in the morning. We talked about many things. And that is when I thanked her for that hug — who knows how many years earlier. Thank goodness I said it. I told her the whole story: 'I came to you, I said that to you, and you hugged me.' Do you know what she said? 'Let’s hug again.' And then we hugged. It was very beautiful.

Was there an organised audition with other people, or were you alone in Lichtburg? Did you train with the company, perhaps join a rehearsal? How was it?

There was no audition. I had only heard that in Greece — I don’t know who said it. Someone encouraged me to try because everyone knew I wanted to go to Pina. At school they even called me 'Pina' because every day I said, 'I want to go to Pina Bausch.' Every day. She didn’t hold an audition. She simply told me: 'You can stay here. You can join the classes. You can watch the rehearsals.' I watched Legend of Chastity rehearsals for a month and took classes. But then I needed money, because at that time you couldn’t transfer money out of Greece unless you were a student — and I wasn’t. I needed to earn something. Then Pina told me: 'FTS is looking for a boy.' FTS is the Folkwang Tanzstudio, and Pina was the artistic director at the time. Hans Züllig was there. I did the audition — the first and last audition of my life. Jean Cébron was there too, Christine Kono, Hans Züllig, and Pina. I auditioned, and they accepted me. I couldn’t believe it. I started at Folkwang on a three‑and‑a‑half‑year contract. At the same time, I danced as a guest in three pieces with Pina: The Rite of Spring, Iphigenie auf Tauris, and On the Mountain a Cry Was Heard. We performed at the Paris Opera, here, and in various cities. During a tour — I think it was Tokyo in 1992 — we were performing On the Mountain a Cry Was Heard. I travelled with them as a guest. And then they were also going to perform 1980 in Hong Kong. So I had to fly back alone, because I wasn’t part of that piece. In Tokyo, Pina called me to her room. It’s a lovely story — unbelievable.

She had received many gifts from the theatre and from friends — dolls, beautiful Japanese objects. She had too many. She asked if I could take a bag with some small gifts, since I was flying from Tokyo to Frankfurt and she had to continue to Hong Kong. I said, 'Yes, of course, I’ll take the bag.' Then she asked me: 'If you want, I have a vacancy in the company.' 'Oh my God. I can’t believe it. Thank you, thank you, thank you.' Another hug. A week or two later I dreamt that Pina came into my dream with a plane ticket and said: 'Darling, here is a ticket to Crete — one way!' 'Oh no, no!' But when I woke up, I knew I was in. By the way, I handled that bag from Tokyo so carefully because it was Pina’s — her gifts. There was a beautiful cloth doll with lovely eyes, very Japanese, beautifully made. I was so careful on the plane to Frankfurt, then on the plane to Düsseldorf, then on the train to Essen, where I lived at the time. Everything was perfect. And then — it’s only one kilometre — I took a taxi from the station to my home. And then it happened: the taxi drove over the bag. And the doll? The eyes fell out, an arm broke. I was in shock. Pina had entrusted me with this doll. She had taken me into the company. I had done everything to protect it — and in the last hundred metres it broke. I was devastated. It was awful. When the company returned, I called Pina and told her I was sorry, that the doll was 'dead'. I cried. I tried to fix it. It was terrible. She sensed my panic and said: 'It doesn’t matter. It’s all right. Thank you. Calm down.' Unbelievable. I don’t know where the doll is now, but I’m sure it still exists. I would love to see it again.

I’d like to talk about those three years in the Folkwang Tanzstudio. As you said, studying in Athens involved a very extensive programme. What was added to that? What did you experience at FTS in 1993 — which choreographers, which pieces? And the modern dance of Züllig and Cébron is particularly interesting. What did you discover that was new to you?

For me, my time in Essen was like a second school. It was incredibly important. I learned things I had never encountered before — the entire technique of Hans Züllig, the technique of Jean Cébron. I had no idea about any of that. It was a new beginning. And it was essential for me to learn these things as a young dancer, while my body could still absorb everything. We created pieces with Susanne Linke and Urs Dietrich, with Mark Sieczkarek, études by Jean Cébron, and a piece by Carolyn Carlson. I created original pieces with these choreographers, and in some cases I learned roles created by others. We made new works with the choreographers, and we also performed repertoire with Susanne Linke, new pieces with Urs Dietrich, new pieces with Mark Sieczkarek. It was a different world for me — wonderful, and artistically very important. I discovered a new perspective on dance and learned new techniques: how to move the upper body, how to use the arms. It was all new to me, and I was extremely curious. At the same time, I began learning The Rite of Spring with Pina — also a completely different world. Or On the Mountain a Cry Was Heard, or Iphigenie auf Tauris. It was fantastic. As a student, it was incredibly rich — the material, the movement. And the experience of being on tour with the company: how to be with a company, how to be on stage, how to travel, how to rehearse with Pina or with FTS. In Greece I had only gone to school. I had very little stage experience. After school I did some work with a company, but that meant five or six different stages. At FTS we toured across Europe — a huge tour through Eastern Europe, many performances. We travelled constantly and danced constantly. Plus the three pieces with Pina. I was always dancing, performing, learning. It was an essential period and helped me enormously when I later joined Pina. I wasn’t ready before — I needed experience, technique, and to learn many different things before joining such a major company. I was still a child, so to speak. I needed to learn a lot. FTS was a crucial learning period — vital for company life later, and for me as an artist.

It was also a time of change after 1989 and the fall of the Wall — a completely new experience for you as well, a new environment. I want to keep that in mind in relation to the world situation. But first I want to ask: The Rite of Spring and Iphigenie auf Tauris can be learned as movement — very specific movement from Pina Bausch. But On the Mountain a Cry Was Heard adds another level. Can you remember what you suddenly saw that was different?

Yes, it was very different. I was always afraid I wasn’t good enough — but I think you always have that fear, even now. It was completely different because in The Rite of Spring you first have to learn the movement and then repeat it a hundred times until you get it right. Or you learn how to work together as a group, because The Rite of Spring has many group moments and you must be perfect with the music. That is a different approach from Gebirge. In On the Mountain a Cry Was Heard, I only did the group parts at first. But I observed my colleagues — they weren’t yet my colleagues, because I was still a guest. I watched them on stage and in rehearsals, and to me they were extraordinary. I thought I couldn’t even speak to them. Once I went to Nazareth Panadero — I loved Nazareth from the beginning, but I was afraid to talk to her. What did I say? 'I love you!' For me they were incredible. I couldn’t believe I was working with these people. There were kilometres between me and them, and I had to somehow shorten that distance. Everything was new, and at the same time I felt very comfortable, because I felt at home here. I still had a lot to learn, but Pina helped me enormously because she gave me so much criticism — corrections for every little thing — which helped me move forward. I felt good here; I felt at home. And at the same time, the dancers — and Pina — with whom I was on stage were so admirable to me. That feeling has stayed. Later, when I was assisting and my colleagues were on stage, I couldn’t believe I was dancing with them. What they did was immense. I thought, 'My God, am I really there with them?' I couldn’t believe it because they were doing something tremendous on stage. You have to start small. Just like in The Rite of Spring, you learn one movement after another — very slowly: one arm, one leg, then the next movement. And with The Rite of Spring, one situation after another, slowly. You have to learn slowly. Sometimes, when there is no time, you have to jump in and join. You tell yourself: 'Yes, keep your ears open, watch carefully,' and you join in and learn. That’s how it was. In the beginning there was a huge learning process because there was so much to learn. When I came to the company, at the beginning there was a festival Pina organised. I had to learn many pieces at once. All I did was study, learn, and learn.

The 1993/94 season marked 20 years of Tanztheater Wuppertal. That meant a great many pieces to learn. I’ll read the list so you have a picture of it. That season we performed Iphigenie auf Tauris, Orpheus und Eurydike, The Rite of Spring, Bluebeard, Café Müller, 1980, Kontakthof, Carnations, On the Mountain a Cry Was Heard, Two Cigarettes in the Dark, Viktor, Palermo Palermo, Tanzabend II (the 'Madrid piece'), The Piece with the Ship, and as a new creation Ein Trauerspiel.

Yes — oh God, that was so much. Of course I didn’t take part in all the pieces, but I learned a great deal. That first season, and Ein Trauerspiel, was my first piece as an original dancer in a creation.

It was my first creation. In this first piece I gained a different perspective on Tanztheater. Until then I had only learned pieces by taking on roles created by others. Suddenly I had to create a role myself — I had to learn something new again. I had to understand: What does that mean? What does Pina do? She asks questions, we must answer, and so on. But I loved it — I loved it immensely. I did so many things, including many silly things. I did everything because I was so happy. I felt so creative. Of course, I did a lot of stupid things — but in the moment you don’t see them as stupid. You think they’re beautiful. A month later you look back and think, 'Oh, what did I do there? That’s terrible!' But it doesn’t matter. I was very young and had many ideas, and I put them all out there. For every question I did many, many things. I loved it — it was almost ecstatic for me. It was the first time I created a dance for myself, and I was surprised. Until then I had always thought of myself as an adagio dancer — I loved adagios, I was flexible, I could do the splits. Lovely — but foolish. When I saw my first dance, it was full of energy. So much energy! I didn’t know I could dance like that. I didn’t know it. But I did it — for myself and for Pina. She was there. It was surprising: 'Oh my God, that’s how I actually dance!' I had no idea. I discovered it through Pina’s guidance. I could move differently than I thought. It was unbelievable. I had the wrong idea of how I moved. In Ein Trauerspiel I discovered: 'Ah, I can move like this!' I didn’t know it before. I still remember the smell of the stage. The performances were magical for me. Every day felt like the first day, working with my colleagues. It was beautiful — in Vienna and here. I really loved that piece. It is beautiful. It was a wonderful time.

Well, as you say, you were inhibited. You created freely. Can you remember which task or question led you to discover that speed or strong energy? Is there something specific that stayed with you?

I realised that later when I was putting my dance together. Because with the small movement questions that Pina asked, you create such short phrases. I tried to answer her questions with movements, but I didn’t recognise them as fast movements. I simply thought I was responding to what Pina proposed. Later, when I put everything together, I noticed that everything I had done was fast after all. That’s when I realised: 'Oh, I can move like that!' The dance was already there; I couldn’t change it anymore. And Pina didn’t change it either — she only said, 'Okay, let’s add some music now.' She didn’t touch the dance. She told me: 'Maybe you can do that twice?' She gave me complete freedom. In fact, she almost always let me be free in all my dances. Once in Nefés I made a dance and showed it to her. I was exhausted afterwards because it was super fast and super hard. Then she called me — I thought she would say, 'It’s okay, nice,' but no. She asked me a question that forced me to start again. So I forgot that three‑minute dance and had to create a new one from the beginning. It became a completely different dance. Sometimes that was how she provoked me — I think — so that I would always do something new or different from what I had done before. It was very productive, but also disappointing, because by then everyone already had music, and I didn’t have even one movement. But then something else happened in Nefés. It became another quick dance. Thank God — because I really love what I do in Nefés now. It’s different from what I had shown before, and she provoked that.

She provoked another facet of you.

Yes, that’s right. She wanted to find something else — to risk something. She wanted us to take risks too. She asked this quite often: 'Take a risk,' 'Take a risk in a movement,' or 'Take risks with someone else.' If you want to go further, you have to take risks. If we don’t risk, we simply repeat ourselves.

Unfortunately, all three pieces created in this period — Madrid, The Piece with the Ship, and Ein Trauerspiel — were performed very little.

I don’t really know why either. In Ein Trauerspiel I know the stage set was difficult to work with. The sand was artificial, not real sand, so we all got cuts on our skin — that was very difficult. I don’t know about the other pieces. The Madrid piece with the snow — we didn’t perform that often. The Piece with the Ship was performed a bit more. In recent years we have performed it again. It was also a wonderful piece. But Ein Trauerspiel was only performed in Vienna, Wuppertal and Paris. Unfortunately. It was truly a wonderful piece. It’s beautiful — very beautiful — but unfortunately it was only performed in those three cities.

We’re on to the next season, 1994/95. The new piece this year is one that Pina Bausch dances herself, and that is Danzón. Do you have recollections of that? You saw her dancing once again. What did you create there?

For Danzón we were a small group of dancers on stage. There were only a few of us — maybe nine or ten, just a third of the company. It was also very intense. Since it was my second piece, I already knew a bit about how she worked. But the questions — of course they were new, they were different. I had already done a lot in the first piece, hundreds of things. Now I had to think more carefully about what I was showing. And try again — you have to try again every day. But there was an 'accident', so to speak: every time we made a sequence, Jan Minařík recorded it on video. We always recorded the movements twice, because sometimes one version was better than the other. So we stood in front of Pina, and once she finished her notes, she looked up, and then we performed the sequence once, and then twice — and that was it. After a few months everyone picked up their VHS tape and went to Pina, and we watched all the footage together. And she said: 'This movement yes,' 'This no,' 'You can repeat that,' 'We know that already,' 'Maybe not,' 'That no.' So you take note of everything she says — yes, no, or maybe. You write it down, and then you go off on your own with this list and try to put it together and make bigger phrases. I grabbed my tape and went to her place. We watched it together — and the tape only contained the last phrase from the previous day. All my movements were gone. Because Jan must have rewound my tape and recorded over it. So in the end all my movements were gone, and only the last movement remained.

And Pina gasped and asked, 'Do you remember your movements?' 'Of course not. I don’t know what I did eight months ago in August. It’s already March. I have no idea. I wrote down a bit, but I have no idea.' In the end I only had that last phrase. She was very sad; I was doubly sad because I had no dance left. I only had one small phrase. But she did something incredible with that one question. That’s the phrase that appears in the film Pina by Wim Wenders — the moment where I make a phrase with the women, with my trousers down. And that is my dance from Danzón. I love it. It’s ten seconds long — and I love it. That was what remained on the video: that movement, and the few things I remembered — and she made a dance out of it. How did she manage to create something from that situation? It’s brilliant. She could take a little nothing and create something really big from it. It all comes down to where, how, and why. Then everything makes sense. My dance in Danzón, that little phrase done in front of the women — it makes sense. It is remarkable how, where, and when she places it inside the piece. I was super happy, and in the end I said, 'Thank God for that accident.' I really like my dance. It was very small, but so strong and so important to me. Super important. In the end, it doesn’t take more than a minute to make something real. It’s remarkable what she did with that situation.

When you first did it, were you already working with a colleague? Did you ask someone to sit there so you could do something? Or was that added later?

She added it. Pina asked the colleague to come and sit there. Because originally I made this movement — with my trousers down — directly towards Pina herself. Then she asked me to do it there, and then another woman came… And suddenly all these women were there, and I went from one to the other.

True, that contextualises the phrase. As you just said, this is how she composed the dance.

That is exactly the incredible thing about her. From that one small movement — a little nothing: you do something, trousers down, trousers up. But then how, with which music, and at which moment in the piece? At that point Dominique Mercy is throwing earth onto the ground, and I come in as this desperate boy. That was amazing. I was so disappointed that my movements were gone from the tape — and then so happy that she created something like that from it. It’s unbelievable.

Did you also see how Pina developed her dance in Danzón?

She worked on something for herself in the corner. We had no idea what she was doing. Then during the stage rehearsals we saw her come in at the very end — and she danced. We could see her from the wings. We were all amazed: 'Oh my God! She dances so beautifully.' And then at the end she walks away, waving her hand. And we asked ourselves, 'Why is she waving goodbye?' We were puzzled: 'Why is she saying goodbye?' It felt like she was saying goodbye to us. 'No, it’s too early!' 'Oh God, why is she saying goodbye?' It felt like a farewell at that moment. But it was wonderful that we danced together in one piece. She was always there backstage. Whenever we passed by, back and forth, she was there. We knew she was always there. She waited for her moment to dance, and then she walked away. So we always knew she was present. Of course we watched her from the side every evening. Now I remember the smell of the stage, her music, the hay, the jokes, the laughter. It’s unbelievable how she placed her dance. She comes onstage — we are all on stage behind these tents, and Mechthild Grossmann is reading about Bambi and children’s stories. Then I tell two jokes, the audience laughs — a lot of unrest, laughter, clapping. And in that exact moment Pina quietly enters and begins her dance. That was truly unbelievable — the moment she chose to come in and dance.

That again shows her mastery in composition — this interplay between colours and between moods.

And that was, of course, a lot of work to decide when something should happen. She tried many things until she found the right moment — or what she felt was right. It was never the first attempt. She tried everything she could. Anything. Sometimes it was really difficult. You might have to repeat something ten times until she found the right thing — your dance, your music, a situation, what follows what. That was very difficult because we had to do it again and again and repeat. But actually, it wasn’t repetition — it was trying again. And that is completely different. We tried this with that, then something else again. And that was also the case with her own dance — she tried when it should happen, and she explored what should come after. That was everything: we just tried, and in the end — okay, this was the best combination. But the best combination was never the first attempt. There were days of simply trying to find the right thing.

Thank you for using this word 'try', because also in Danzón, between dress rehearsal and premiere, something happened.

In the dress rehearsal we actually had: first part, break, second part. I remember the jokes were in the first part, then there was a break. Then Pina told me I should go to the audience during the break and say: 'Please come out, I can tell you a few jokes.' That’s how the break began. That was the dress rehearsal: first part, break, second part. The next day, for the premiere, she placed the second part first — so the first part became the second part — and there was no break. That’s how the piece turned out to be. That’s the thing.

So, after Danzón, in the next season 1995/96, the new creation is Only You.

Danzón is my second piece — created in Wuppertal — Ein Trauerspiel in Vienna, and my third piece is Only You. We were in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Texas and Arizona. All of these places were amazing for me. We were at the UCLA campus. There we made new friends who helped us drive around LA all the time: Hollywood, the flea market, the Beverly Hills Hotel. Meeting all these people was really fantastic. Only You had its premiere here in Wuppertal. There was a scene where I came on with some of the women. These women formed a living sofa. Then I sat on them like a sofa and talked to the audience. Then I told a story about ancient Greece — a very nice story with Aida Vainieri. I placed her on my lap like a child and spanked her while telling a story from my childhood. It’s an incredible story. All of that was in the premiere here in Wuppertal. Then I also had a difficult dance where I had to fall to the floor in a split, with wonderful music from Chocolate Elvis. I wore a white shirt, black trousers, white socks, black shoes — and it was a very demanding dance. I injured myself and couldn’t move. Then my colleagues took over some of my role. But this scene with the sofa and the whole text was too complicated. So no one did it, and the scene was cut in Wuppertal.

Then we were to perform it later in Paris at the Théâtre de la Ville. During a stage rehearsal, when the sofa scene came chronologically, I entered with my women — and I heard Pina Bausch through the microphone: 'Where are you going, darling? The scene is out.' The scene was no longer there. Because Pina had seen the piece without that scene, and of course it was tighter and more cohesive. The scene was cut — but I didn’t know that. I found out onstage in Paris. What a shame! It’s out, it’s out. Back to the story I told on the couch — it was so nice. Aida Vainieri was one of the women. She sat here and spread her legs like that. She wanted to show her underwear to the audience. So I got up and closed her legs. And I said that in ancient Greece the young men wore short skirts and no underwear. When they sat on the sand with the philosophers — the teachers — and then stood up, they smoothed the sand so you couldn’t see the imprint of what they left there. Then I took Aida on my lap like this (shows) and began to slap her. And that’s how it happened when I was a child — a boy had an accident and almost died. I was very small, and so was my cousin. Everyone in the village cried and screamed, of course. But my cousin and I weren’t scared and we didn’t cry. So her mother, my aunt, took my cousin on her lap and slapped her so she would cry. I had things like that in my mind, and that was the story I built with Aida. Okay — that’s what I’ll write in my book, when I write a book.

Hearing this through the loudspeakers — was that during the dress rehearsal?

That was when we placed the piece on stage for the first time, before the dress rehearsal. That was the stage rehearsal. 'Where are you going, darling?' She called me 'darling' many times. That was very nice. I remember something else now. I was still a guest, not yet in the company. I’m telling you a story I haven’t told before — very nice though. We were in Turin and Rome with Iphigenie auf Tauris. And we travelled from Turin to Rome by train. Hans Züllig was also there. I was on that train, facing the direction of travel. And Pina sat across from me. So I asked her: 'Pina, do you want us to switch places?' — so she could sit facing the direction of travel. And she said something wonderful. She said: 'No, darling. You’re looking…' — hang on, I always forget that word in German — 'You’re looking into the future.' Yes, I always forget that word. I asked Pina: 'Do you want us to switch places?' And she told me: 'No, darling — you’re looking into the future, and I’m looking at the past.' So beautiful. I wrote that down. And when she was gone, I found it in my papers from back then. She expressed it so wonderfully.

Actually, I think we could talk about generational change at this stage. Because you learned the pieces from the 70s and 80s, and then you collaborated on the pieces with new dancers. Do the pieces of the 90s — with your generation of dancers — have a different character? How do you see that?

In my generation we were all young dancers, and of course we wanted to dance a lot. That was when every dancer began to have their own solo. That hadn’t happened before. In pieces like On the Mountain a Cry Was Heard, 1980, and many earlier works, it was not like in the 1990s, where every dancer had a solo. In my generation it was clear that we all had to work on a solo — in addition to the whole group piece. The other pieces we learned, like Kontakthof, On the Mountain a Cry Was Heard, Legend of Chastity, The Piece with the Ship, also had a few solos — but in the earlier pieces there wasn’t always a solo for every dancer. Often there were large group sections, and dancers might be on stage the whole time, as in Kontakthof, Legend of Chastity, or Arien. Still, for us — not being the original dancers in these pieces — it was incredibly enriching to learn them. It was super important. When you learn The Rite of Spring, your body changes. Your vocabulary and movement change. The same with Kontakthof or On the Mountain a Cry Was Heard — you develop yourself with something beyond just movement. Your artistry becomes richer. The dancer becomes much, much richer in every area: in the body, in thoughts, in feelings, in the way of reacting. It is truly an incredible wealth — like opening many windows at once and having many different perspectives on how to dance, and what each dance is for. The dance has a different meaning afterwards, and that was super important for us when learning this repertoire. She created a new piece almost every year, and revived an older one again — and that was super, super important, because then you understand dance differently, through completely different things. That was super, super important.

Those soli sprang out of these questions, these tasks, and have a very rich, complex musicality and phrasing. Do you have any thoughts about how that came about? Because suddenly you recognise a path between everything — even though the dancers are so different, there is something that ties them together.

Yes. For example, at the very beginning in pieces such as The Window Washer, Danzón, or Ein Trauerspiel — my first pieces — Pina showed us some movements. She showed us a few phrases, and we could incorporate these movements into our dances if we wanted. For example, in The Window Washer, many used a certain movement (shows). It’s a Pina movement. So she showed us these movements so we could use them if we wanted. Later, she didn’t show anything anymore. She left us completely free. The tasks, the questions were the same for everyone — and they were there to provoke us to think differently, or to think about something else. For example, the movement questions were so varied that when you found an answer, you had to find a specific movement for that one question. How can I express that — since you mentioned musicality? For example, there was a question where you had to find a movement with depth, with a lot of weight. Or a movement that is very light. Or a movement like a drop of water. Or an aggressive movement. Or an animal movement. So there were different qualities in the questions, and you had to react accordingly. That meant you had to find phrases — and each phrase had a different quality from the others: timing-wise, or a huge movement that takes up a lot of space, or a very small, subtle movement with just the face and hands. So there were various questions for different qualities. And I’m sure that’s what shows in the phrasing and musicality of a dance — because the dance comes from phrases with totally different qualities. There are little phrases, and then you have to assemble them — and so you have completely different qualities within it. The questions were asked in such a way that you think differently, and think in terms of different qualities. Otherwise you might say: we make one movement, and that means taking up a lot of space, or going deep into the earth, or a high note like a violin — and then you only have one quality. You can have that too — but she had many different qualities. That is why there are so many different types of dance… yes, that’s right: qualities. The word is quality. A minute and a half of dancing — which my dances normally are, a maximum of two minutes — took three months. Three months of work. I dance for two minutes, but it took three months — built very, very slowly. It’s not like I dance (shows) and it’s done. Sure, you can do it like that — but that wasn’t the case. It was a very long process. That is why there are so many different qualities in it — because it was built very slowly.

As I understand it — and correct me if I’m wrong — the moment she stopped showing movement, she shaped the dances verbally through her provocations, her questions, her tasks. And in doing so, she modulated how these different complex rhythms, musicalities, and movement qualities came together.

Clearly! And everyone reacted differently in their own way. Because everyone is different — and that was wonderful. You have the same questions, but different answers, because everyone in the company is different. That was very, very interesting.