Dominique Mercy
Dominique Mercy has been a dancer at the Tanztheater Wuppertal for 45 years. He is involved in the creation of 32 pieces by Pina Bausch. Pina Bausch dies in 2009. Dominique Mercy takes over the artistic direction of Tanztheater Wuppertal for four years, together with Robert Sturm.
Information
1950 | born in Mauzac (France) |
1961 to 1964 | dance training with Madame Germaine Lalande |
1973 to 2018 | member (with some breaks) of the Tanztheater Wuppertal |
2009 to 2020 | member of the Advisory Board of the Pina Bausch Foundation |
2009 to 2013 | Artistic Director of Tanztheater Wuppertal, together with Robert Sturm |
awarded the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, the Bessie Award and the Légion d'honneur, among others. |
Biography
Dominique Mercy
was born in 1950 in Mauzac, France, and received his first dance lessons from the age of six from Mme Dupradeau in Talence. For three further years he studied with Mme Germaine Lalande and in 1965 joined the Grand-Théâtre de Bordeaux. In 1968 he switched to Amiens to the newly formed Ballet Théâtre Contemporain under the direction of Jean-Albert Cartier and Françoise Adret, who were interested in collaboration between choreographers, painters and composers. Mercy danced in pieces by choreographers including Adret, Félix Blaska, Jean Bailée, John Butler, Michel Descombey and George Skibine. Manuel Alum from the Paul Sanasardo Dance Company in New York came as a guest teacher and in 1972 invited him to the Saratoga Summer Festival. Here he met Pina Bausch, who was showing her choreography Philips 836885 D.S.Y. and teaching in Saratoga. He identified with her movements and had the feeling he’d finally found his artistic home. He was therefore delighted when she invited him to Wuppertal to join her new company in 1973 along with Malou Airaudo.
Wuppertal: coming and going
Pina Bausch worked on the principle that things which are not yet art are at least as important as things which already are – if not more so. When Mercy was unable to stop a coughing fit during rehearsals for her first Wuppertal choreography Fritz, together with him she developed it into an outlandish coughing dance. He soon became one of the most important protagonists in the new dance theatre company, taking leading roles in the two Gluck operas Iphigenia on Tauris and Orpheus and Eurydice. When Pina Bausch began to alter her working methods, asking her dancers questions, he went with her as a matter of course. Nevertheless he left the company in 1975 and 1978, founding the Ensemble La Main with Malou Airaudo, Héléna Pikon, Jacques Patarozzi and Dana Sapiro, and working with Carolyn Carlson at the Paris Opera on the productions Wind-Water-Sand and The Architects. And yet every time he returned to Wuppertal with more conviction than ever.
Ideal Collaboration
Over time Pina Bausch and Dominique Mercy developed an ideal form of collaboration. Both loved small, rapid disturbances. Anyone who has seen his floundering Kaspar in Two Cigarettes In The Dark has encountered not just a comic figure but also a human being in profound distress. His solos were almost always ambivalent, knife-edge performances. He especially rated figures with a slight kink or defect. ‘Sad little fellows,’ as he himself said, and worryingly strange oddballs, were his speciality – and repeated roles en travestie. In this way he rose to be one of the most outstanding soloists in the company. Despite this he still found time for other activities. From 1988 to 2009 he taught at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen. In 1999 he created the duo Petit psaume du Matin with Jodef Nadj. In 2003 Régis Obadia made a documentary film about him, Dominique Mercy danse Pina Bausch.
When Pina Bausch died in 2009 he took over the artistic direction of the Tanztheater Wuppertal till 2013, together with Robert Sturm, thus securing the continuation of her artistic legacy. To this day he still works on revivals and new productions of repertory pieces. For his work he has been awarded prizes such as the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, the Bessie Award and the Légion d‘honneur.
Text by Norbert Servos
Translated by Steph Morris
Gallery
Dominique Mercy and Meryl Tankard in “Café Müller” by Pina Bausch
Photo: Ulli Weiss © Pina Bausch Foundation
Premieres
Piece | Fritz |
Date | 5 January 1974 |
Venue | Opernhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
Choreografische Assistenz | Hans Pop |
Dance | Carlos Orta |
Catherine Denisot | |
Charlotte Butler | |
Dominique Mercy | |
Ed Kortlandt | |
Gabriel Sala | |
Heinz Samm | |
Jan Minařík | |
John Giffin | |
João Penalva | |
Malou Airaudo | |
Marlis Alt | |
Monika Sagon | |
Monika Wacker | |
Riitta Laurikainen | |
Tjitske Broersma | |
Vivienne Newport | |
Wolf-Werner Wolf | |
Stagehand | Helmut Kühne |
Lighting | Hans-Joachim Deinert |
Make-up | Heinz Dildey |
Sound | Horst Kersten |
Artistic director | Pina Bausch |
Ballet master | Hans-Dieter Klos |
Repetition | Werner Precht |
Technical direction | Rolf Bachmann |
Stage manager | Werner Hartkopf |
Source of cast | Evening leaflet for “Fritz” by Pina Bausch, “Rodeo” by Agnes de Mille and “The green Table” by Kurt Jooss in in Wuppertal, Jan. 5, 1974 |
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Piece | Iphigenie auf Tauris |
Date | 21 April 1974 |
Venue | Opernhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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Piece | Adagio – Five Songs By Gustav Mahler |
Date | 8 December 1974 |
Venue | Opernhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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Piece | I'll Do You In… |
Date | 8 December 1974 |
Venue | Opernhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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Piece | Orpheus und Eurydike |
Date | 23 May 1975 |
Venue | Opernhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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Piece | Renate wandert aus (Renate emigrates) |
Date | 30 December 1977 |
Venue | Opernhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
Costume assistant | Ortrud Himmelreich |
Dance | Anne Marie Benati |
Arnaldo Alvarez | |
Barbara Passow | |
Dana Sapiro | |
Dominique Mercy | |
Ed Kortlandt | |
Erich Leukert | |
Fernando Cortizo | |
Heinz Samm | |
Hiltrud Blanck | |
Héléna Pikon | |
Jacques Patarozzi | |
Jan Minařík | |
John Giffin | |
Josephine Ann Endicott | |
Luis P. Layag | |
Malou Airaudo | |
Mari Di Lena | |
Marion Cito | |
Marlis Alt | |
Monika Sagon | |
Monika Wacker | |
Tjitske Broersma | |
Vivienne Newport | |
Yolanda Meier | |
Stagehand | Paul Aron |
Lighting | Hans-Joachim Deinert |
Make-up | Heinz Dildey |
Sound | Horst Kersten |
Ballet master | Egbert Strolka |
Jean Cébron | |
Ballettkorrepetition | Werner Precht |
Technical direction | Rolf Bachmann |
Workshop management | Leo Haase |
Stage manager | Herbert Görsch |
Props | Günther Fränzel |
Source of cast | Evening leaflet for “Renate wandert aus (Renate emigrates)” by Pina Bausch in in Wuppertal, Dec. 30, 1977 |
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Piece | He Takes Her By The Hand And Leads Her Into The Castle, The Others Follow |
Date | 22 April 1978 |
Venue | Schauspielhaus Bochum Bochum Germany |
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Piece | Café Müller |
Date | 20 May 1978 |
Venue | Opernhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
Dance | Dominique Mercy |
Jan Minařík | |
Malou Airaudo | |
Meryl Tankard | |
Stagehand | Josef Lindler |
Lighting | Hans-Joachim Deinert |
Make-up | Heinz Dildey |
Sound | Klaus Grimm |
Wardrobe supervisor | Ortrud Himmelreich |
Ballet master | Egbert Strolka |
Jean Cébron | |
Ballettkorrepetition | Christoph Haas |
Werner Precht | |
Technical direction | Rolf Bachmann |
Workshop management | Leo Haase |
Stage manager | Herbert Görsch |
Props | Günther Fränzel |
Source of cast | Evening leaflet for “Café Müller” by Pina Bausch, “Café Müller” by Gerhard Bohner, “Café Müller” by Gigi-Georghe Caciuléanu and “Café Müller” by Hans Pop in in Wuppertal, May 20, 1978 |
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Piece | Keuschheitslegende (Legend of Chastity) |
Date | 13 December 1979 |
Venue | Opernhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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Piece | 1980 – A Piece by Pina Bausch |
Date | 18 May 1980 |
Venue | Schauspielhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
Set design assistant | Gerda Raichle |
Dance | Anne Marie Benati |
Anne Martin | |
Arthur Rosenfeld | |
Beatrice Libonati | |
Ed Kortlandt | |
Hans Dieter Knebel | |
Heide Tegeder | |
Isabel Ribas Serra | |
Jan Minařík | |
Janusz Subicz | |
Jean Laurent Sasportes | |
Josephine Ann Endicott | |
Lutz Förster | |
Malou Airaudo | |
Mechthild Großmann | |
Meryl Tankard | |
Nazareth Panadero | |
Vivienne Newport | |
Musician | Arthur Sockel |
Matthias Burkert | |
Special performer | Hans Günter Witt |
Stagehand | Heinz Czyganowski |
Lighting | Siegfried Schuchmann |
Make-up | Heinz Dildey |
Sound | Helmut Schoth |
Ballet master | Dominique Mercy |
Jean Cébron | |
Technical direction | Rolf Bachmann |
Leitung Kostüm | Renate Eichberg |
Workshop management | Leo Haase |
Stage manager | Peter Lütke |
Props | Gerd Klann |
Sportler:in | Max Walther |
Source of cast | Evening leaflet for “1980 – A Piece by Pina Bausch” by Pina Bausch with Tanztheater Wuppertal in in Wuppertal, May 18, 1980 |
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Piece | Bandoneon |
Date | 21 December 1980 |
Venue | Opernhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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Piece | Walzer |
Date | 17 June 1982 |
Venue | Koninklijk Theater Carré Amsterdam Amsterdam Netherlands |
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Piece | Nelken (Carnations) |
Date | 30 December 1982 |
Venue | Opernhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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Piece | Auf dem Gebirge hat man ein Geschrei gehört (On the Mountain a Cry was heard) |
Date | 13 May 1984 |
Venue | Schauspielhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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Piece | Two Cigarettes in the Dark |
Date | 31 March 1985 |
Venue | Schauspielhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
Dance | Bénédicte Billiet |
Dominique Duszynski | |
Dominique Mercy | |
Francis Viet | |
Héléna Pikon | |
Jakob Haahr Andersen | |
Jan Minařík | |
Jean-François Duroure | |
Josephine Ann Endicott | |
Kyomi Ichida | |
Actor | Mechthild Großmann |
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Piece | Viktor |
Date | 14 May 1986 |
Venue | Schauspielhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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Piece | Ahnen |
Date | 21 March 1987 |
Venue | Schauspielhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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Piece | Palermo Palermo |
Date | 17 December 1989 |
Venue | Opernhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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Piece | Tanzabend II |
Date | 27 April 1991 |
Venue | Schauspielhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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Piece | Das Stück mit dem Schiff (The Piece with the Ship) |
Date | 16 January 1993 |
Venue | Opernhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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Piece | Ein Trauerspiel |
Date | 12 February 1994 |
Venue | Schauspielhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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Piece | Danzón |
Date | 13 May 1995 |
Venue | Opernhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
Dance | Aida Vainieri |
Andrey Berezin | |
Antonio Carallo | |
Barbara Kaufmann | |
Cristiana Morganti | |
Daphnis Kokkinos | |
Dominique Mercy | |
Jan Minařík | |
Marigia Maggipinto | |
Regina Advento | |
Actor | Mechthild Großmann |
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Piece | Nur Du (Only You) |
Date | 11 May 1996 |
Venue | Schauspielhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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Piece | Der Fensterputzer (The Window Washer) |
Date | 12 February 1997 |
Venue | Opernhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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Piece | Masurca Fogo |
Date | 4 April 1998 |
Venue | Schauspielhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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Piece | Bluebeard's Castle |
Date | 25 July 1998 |
Venue | Théâtre de l'Archevêché Aix-en-Provence France |
Dance | Andrey Berezin |
Dominique Mercy | |
Fernando Suels Mendoza | |
Jan Minařík | |
Josephine Ann Endicott | |
Julie Shanahan | |
Marlis Alt | |
Rainer Behr | |
Raphaëlle Delaunay | |
Singer | Laszló Polgár |
Violeta Urmana |
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Piece | Wiesenland |
Date | 5 May 2000 |
Venue | Schauspielhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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Piece | Água |
Date | 12 May 2001 |
Venue | Opernhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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Piece | For the Children of yesterday, today and tomorrow |
Date | 25 April 2002 |
Venue | Schauspielhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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Piece | Ten Chi |
Date | 8 May 2004 |
Venue | Schauspielhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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Piece | Vollmond (Full Moon) |
Date | 11 May 2006 |
Venue | Schauspielhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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Piece | "... como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si ..." (Like Moss on the Stone) |
Date | 12 June 2009 |
Venue | Opernhaus Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany |
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