The following is a joint reflection and review written by Elspeth Chan and Janejira Matthews
I: Elspeth Chan
Vollmond, Pina Bausch's mesmerizing creation for Tanztheater Wuppertal, unfolds like a journey through the human psyche. The first act dazzles with exaggerated humour and pleasure, as dancers move with infectious energy. As we transition to the second act, the mood shifts dramatically, revealing raw inner turmoil and pain.
Connecting these halves is a metaphorical river of emotion. At first, it's barely noticeable, hidden beneath an iconic massive boulder. Gradually, it transforms into a meandering stream, following the dancers' subconscious through a valley of movement.
The change of stage setting mirrors the emotional journey. Act one introduces more props like chairs, suggesting a potential space bound by social conventions. As the piece progresses, we witness not only an intensifying cascade of water and rain, but more escalated movements navigated by the energy of the full moon. Traces of love and life scattered across the stage – slippery, vulnerable, and breathtakingly beautiful.
II: Janejira Matthews
An empty stage with nothing but a boulder, water and a chair. It’s a fragment of a landscape lit with moonlight, and it might put you in the mind of a clearing where only the most surreal dreams emerge. In many ways, this is what Vollmond is – a fever dream marked with joy and freedom. In true Bausch style, ideas appear, are leant into by the dancers, and then suddenly switched out for something new. One moment, a dancer forces her laugh until it transforms into something real and infectious, the next, water is being thrown, squirted, flicked. Throughout the first half of Vollmond, the choices made feel conscious and controlled. When to overfill a glass so it soaks the drinker, the comedy of a woman testing how quickly a man can undo her bra strap. As Vollmond progresses, however, the dancers become wilder and more free.
As with most of Bausch’s work, the dancers are fiercely present beyond a performative sense. What begins as a simple movement, an idea, evolves into reality. A female dancer clad in white dances alone, arms reaching and retracting from the core of her body, feet and knees greeting the water that is slowly flooding the upper stage over the two hour performance. Her hair splays and spins with her: this is happiness. She steps towards the audience, eyes glistening, and exclaims ‘My ears hear promises. My eyes see dreams. I am young!’ She runs off with a triumphant grin. But there is more to her declaration than the thrill of youth. Vollmond is a space for the daring. This is a world to become unchained.
With Vollmond created towards the end of Bausch’s life, her style remains distinct and stubbornly trained on the possibility of people. On the possibility of pain. Of love. Of the unpredictable. In Vollmond's final section, a sense of play continues to linger. One dancer stands at the top of the boulder as another uses a water pistol to shoot the paper cup balancing on her head. The water play continues, the second half of Vollmond seeing the upper stage almost completely submerged in water. Two men hold a woman up by her arms and fly her back and forth through the stream, her torso sweeping beneath the surface. Dancers alternate solos, arms and water droplets skimming their kinespheres as tiny waves ricochet around the body. By the time the final moments arrive, when dancers chuck buckets of water at each other and frolic in tides, there is only release and reckless abandon. We’re left with a feeling of being cleansed, although what of is maybe down to the individual. Although some ideas are stretched to a threat of tedium, Vollmond succeeds in teasing human nature and exposing its beauty.