Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Bausch's 'Ten Chi' will haunt your dreams

There are those kinds of artists that impress, those whose work sticks in your brain and those who can change the way you think -- and then there are those that haunt your dreams. It is into the last category that Pina Bausch's Tanztheater Wuppertal falls.

I first saw her startling "Carnations" as a teenager, and I have never forgotten its bizarre, frightening and yet somehow moving imagery -- or how closely hilarity and sadness seemed to cavort together on a carpet of thousands of pink carnations. Was it absurd that she asked the audience to pretend-hug ourselves? But in the end, almost as if by magic, Bausch uncovered a deeper meaning to all of these gestures that left me feeling slightly forlorn. Perhaps underneath it all, I felt, even then, that Bausch was a romantic, and it seems over the years that her work has grown only more poetic.

With "Ten Chi," which Cal Performances presents this November at Zellerbach Hall, Bausch transports us to Japan, where she created and premiered this work in 2004 at the Saitama Arts Theater. Translated roughly as "heaven and earth," "Ten Chi" draws its inspiration from Bausch's and her dancers' experience of the Japanese culture as outsiders, the martial arts, the language, the everyday interactions.

It's a mix reflected in the wide range of musical sources, Asian and European, such as Ryoko Moriyama, Hwang Byungki, Kodo, Yas-Kaz, Gustavo Santaolalla and Rene Aubry, as well as experimentalists such as Portishead's Beth Gibbons, Plastikman (Richie Hawti) and Tudosok -- all played out in an exotically simple setting, shadowed by the tail of a giant whale sounding into the stage.

But if "Ten Chi" sounds potentially obscure, even frustrating, fear not. In the realm of postmodern dance, Bausch is the master of dance theater -- and artists from Bill T. Jones to Robert Wilson to William Forsythe owe her a debt. Dominated by powerful and extraordinary images, her works are at once grandiose and intimate, ridiculous and yet familiar, but always they have the power to reveal something you never realized about yourself. She might even ask the audience to do things that seem silly or uncomfortable, but by whatever means are at her disposal, Bausch intends to make us feel the desire to communicate, to reach out and touch someone.

I expect that my dreams will be haunted again, perhaps by leviathans in the ocean and scattered cherry blossom petals floating on the water, or maybe by the simplest of human gestures. You just never know what we might discover.

Highly Recommended

  • 'Mozart Dances' -- The Mark Morris Dance Group returns to Cal Performances with this evening-length work, whose rhapsodic flair has engendered comparison to Morris' grandest works, such as "L'Allegro il Moderato ed Il Penseroso." Details: Sept. 20-23, Cal Performances, Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, $32-$72, 510-642-9988, http://www.calperfs.berkeley.edu.

  • Joffrey Ballet -- The quintessential American maverick ballet company performs homegrown works, including Twyla Tharp's "Deuce Coupe"; Laura Dean's segment from "Billboards"; and "Pas des Deeses," created by the great Robert Joffrey himself. Details: Oct. 4-6, Cal Performances, Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, $34-$90, 510-642-9988, http://www.calperfs.berkeley.edu.

  • Armitage Gone! Dance -- Once known for confrontational punk-ballet, Karole Armitage introduces her new company to the Bay Area with the grand lyricism of "Ligeti Essays" and "Times is the echo of an axe within a wood." Details: Oct. 13-14, San Francisco Performances, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, $27-$39, 415-978-ARTS, http://www.performances.org.

  • Oakland Ballet -- The beloved Oakland Ballet gets a new lease on life with a program of old favorites, including Nijinsky's "Afternoon of a Faun"; Marc Wilde's "Bolero"; and Ronn Guidi's "Trois Gymnopedies" and "Carnaval d'Aix." Details: Oct. 20, Paramount Theatre, 2025 Broadway, Oakland, $15-$50, 925-685-8497, http://www.rgfpa.org.

  • Lines Contemporary Ballet -- Celebrating its 25th anniversary, Alonzo King's troupe is joined by Zakir Hussain and the Philharmonia Chamber Players in a special program featuring two world premiere works. Details: Nov. 2-11, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Third and Mission streets, S.F. $25-$65, 415-978-ARTS, http://www.linesballet.org.

    'TEN CHI'

  • WHEN: Nov. 16-18


  • WHERE: Cal Performances, Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley


  • HOW MUCH: $34-$76


  • CONTACT: 510-642-9988, http://www.calperfs.berkeley.edu

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