Pina Bausch by Ballet.org.uk
PART II IN TEN SCENES
The hotel melts onto the Champs-Elysee;
Rome’s ashes float eternally on the Tiber.
A tea-dance stops in Berlin.
An Englishwoman fires at Hitler.
Mannequins in pink rehearse with
the corps de ballet – float through nine lives
Jeté en air
float on clouds
land in New York.
****************************
A princess ran away —
she left luxury in a forest.
Her life was a Czardas
played on a violin
by a peasant who
once sank into a swamp,
but rose to marry the princess who
danced with their son as they
migrated to strange lands.
Their trails crossed time and melodies;
their shoes multiplied. They learned
from passing sheep and random cows.
Potatoes raised from the earth, apples
fell from the trees. They danced through
color and blankness..pioneers–
leaving behind angels and broken promises
going forward to find the horizon.
******************************
In dreams I am weightless
gravity becomes visible
I change, grow wings, fly.
This architecture seems emotionless,
also weightless; freedom flows
construction seems fluid as
water, invisible as wind.
******************************
Words dancing – language moves.
Partners become one
through elemental feelings.
The NOW elongates,
the past feels closer,
the future turns on the wheel.
Lightning strikes, thunder cracks!
Outer roars meet inner screams –
sleep’s a path to peace.
******************************
Summer settles like wet mush
steam rises as the moon wanes
the soul sheds its skin.
Ghost thoughts fill the void.
Sentience appears behind the veil
The movement changes yet moves on.
There souls turn weightless
spinning through summer leaves
one may find its mate in the light of a new moon.
******************************
Sword leaves saw edges
cut sunshine to splinters
falling shards splinter time
Talent filled colors
flow from the sun’s descent
art’s fierce paradigm
shadows deepen history’s secrets
a sense of deja-vu
dark matter permeates thoughts
twilight’s like sailing through stars
where ghosts exchange melodies
all harmonics rearranged
*******************************
Deception deep in DNA
That life has no limits
Stretches beyond horizons
Like perpetual gyroscopes in motion
our minds explore new ideas,
an endless phantasmagoria of thoughts
********************************
Birthday dance of fireworks
freedom bursts in colored sparks
born at dawn’s light in cold and mud
Strings sing while feet dance
Behind the veil a girl moves
the urge to begin again is strong
********************************
Caught by a rose’s thorn
shredded by the western wind
wrapped onto a wagon wheel
love holds on against nature’s force
********************************
Thread your ring
onto the crescent moon
as the quadrille begins.
Join Venus, Sirius, and Jupiter
to music of the spheres as galaxies arise
∞
©Gay Reiser Cannon * 3/9/16 – All Rights Reserved
If you haven’t read and care to read Part I it is here:
https://wordpress.com/post/hollyheir.wordpress.com/3273
Beachanny's Texas 
There are some simply gorgeous images here. I like the way you use words, stringing them together into vivid visuals, very much.
Thank you for you notes. Much appreciated.
This is like a dramatic story unfolding one scene at a time ~ The ending part is very powerful November dance but my favorite part is this:
I wake
covered with strings
Behind us is a waterfall
A river below us leads to some sea
What puppet-master dances me there?
Thanks for sharing Gay and looking forward to the next one ~
Thank you Grace. It has required lots of editing from my original notes. I’m not sure about the length but your words give me hope that it is not too long to hold a reader’s interest.
I really like this, especially “En pointe she lifts factories” and “I wake covered with strings.”
“her stomach’s riddled with holes” … Ooh, I sure do know stomach ulcers well. And riddles.
Fantastic closing stanza.
Thank you Shawna. Yes..that interpretation works too. Her dancers throughout her ballets formed long queues where they walk on precarious ledges, dams, overhangs, sometimes with eyes shut and holding their bellies as if in pain.
Your presentation is captivating and most assuredly is poetry. The first scene sets the stage for the telling of the tragic downfall that follows. I felt the dark and bleak messages strongly and certainly the references to dance were there as you described in the flow of the skirts, en pointe, paso dobles, the stomping of the floor, mopping of the floor with palms, etc.
I don’t know if it was intentional or not but words leapt out at me me… “occupied”, “resistance”, “signals” words that have specific meaning (to me) attached to the circumstances. Of course this phrase caught my attention: “Arbeit macht frei”/The smokestacks are quiet/Their shapes darken our history/
and this: Dressed in black/ she dances through her pain/ her stomach’s riddled with holes/swastikas plague her steps in vain
The whole piece is rich with images that you used masterfully to illustrate a “dancing” toward annihilation. Anyway, that’s what I got out of it.
I’m impressed, Gay. Bravo!
Gayle ~
Really thank you Gayle. Her work doesn’t necessarily become that specific with a weltschmerz about WWII, Germany, Hitler, etc.; however viewing it as a child who came to the world in 1942 it certainly resonates with me and the horrors we grew up to learn about and were shaken by. It informed our youth and led to different actions taken by large groups of people in response to civil rights, women’s rights, and repression for many of us and the opposing reaction by others. I think it is a large part of what we’re dealing in geopolitical affairs today.
Anyway I really appreciate your in depth consideration of the piece so far. It makes me trust in it more. Thank you again.
Those times resonated with me too, Gay. My mind ran with the image of the holocaust and the idea of people following (sometimes) blindly to their demise. I really appreciate your talent and look forward to your other offerings.
I tried to visualise each scene… and I think I could see it, and also the messages within.. I have never thought of ballet as letters from the choreographer to the audience before… But now I see the ink in each passage.
I think with classical ballet, it is more codified in the “language of dance”. Most classical dance is choreographed to accent the notes and music; but with modern dance especially with this choreographer there is a change. It is like poetry written to be expressed through movement, costume and staging as much as through the music itself. Sometimes the music is almost incidental or only rhythmic. Bausch’s work is extraordinary in the way she captures mood, modernity, and history as it affects the present, I think.
A second read was a true joy.. yes there is a lot of imagism here Gay… the swastikas and the workmen undressing mannequins is really more than a little disturbing.
I put up the wrong link. So sorry! Ck again. And also thank you.
I can remove the incorrect link 🙂
Thank you please do!
Thank you…I’m mistake prone these days.
I don’t think you need to worry about the length, because it is broken down in scenes, each with quite a different feel and rhythm to it, so it works. Your interpretation of Pina Bausch’s quite abstract works is personal and emotional, reflected in your choice of words and dramatic sense of colour and shapes. The circles, spheres, cubes… the green dress rippling, the black swastikas…. the tanglement of limbs. I can really see the scene.
One small correction: ‘lieder’ is plural, so she either sings ‘a lied’ or else sings several ‘lieder’ – your choice!
Thank you so much for the notes. I will correct the “lied” reference. As you can see I know absolutely no German…a deficiency in my education that I regret. I should have picked that up from my musical background but regrettably I didn’t. I have to depend on help in these areas so thanks for that as well. Much appreciated.
Brilliant, Gay. So many wonderful active verbs that bring this poem to life.
Thank you Victoria. Yes..writing about dance which I have done so often hoping to match that vibrancy and quickness, I know it’s imperative to employ active verbs to snap that instant that relays the deeper meaning in dance. So difficult, so challenging a quest, but I think worth the effort. Your comment’s much appreciated!
Dancing deep iN sOUl
uS.. emoTions
SpiRit relEase
miNd
BoDy
balancE..
musiC oF
Us SonG
free steps
come next
ExpresSinG
heARts
noW
DanCe ALive..:)
Thank you – more than dance here though, it’s the metaphor for human suffering and interaction.
True of course and dance for me an escape for that more than words will ever tale.. My friend..:)
Powerful fare here, Gay. Some of them really moved me. One of them being the one that starts with “He stands on an orange crate” Another is the last one which begins with “Dressed in black.” I can see this series put together as a chapbook, Gay. Poems on even-numbered pages & (I picture) black and white drawings on the odd numbered pages. Really, I think you really have something here! Very moving.
Thank you Mary – that was my idea as well…the chapbook part. I like the idea about the illustrations too. There are as of now 20 vignettes and a full notebook of ideas and notes. The reason I wanted feedback was to see if there would be an audience for it. Your comments give me hope. I appreciate your taking the time to consider it.
Very deep, and love how you have si many images strung together.
Gay…I haven’t read a piece of poetry that grabbed me by the heartstrings in a long time. This one had me crying from the first stanza. I thought immediately of Paris, November 13th. My son’s birthday will for me be forever also a memory of what happened that night.
This is flowingly beautiful, but has such an emotional, dramatic death that I don’t think you have to worry about length. It was perfect in my opinion. It had a cadence , a rise and fall that was absolutely musical and the movement in this piece is so damn visual that it carries you forward.
Brava, my beautiful friend. Regardless of interpretation, you have written something superb and memorial.
With Love, Lady Nyo (Jane)
Oh Jane, I just saw this. Thank you for your in-depth comment. It was your son’s birthday, and my son was there..thankfully not where everything happened. Well this work based on Bausch’s choreography has overtones of lots of modernity. I have a fairly long history of writing dance poems going back to when Greg was competing in dance and I wrote a poem for each of the compulsory dances for that year…waltz, paso, tango, and foxtrot. The only one that was good was Foxtrot but I became fascinated with whether I could convey in words the esoteric and ephemeral meanings of music plus movement. The emotion there is deep and immediate. I’m doing my best. I am going to try to put together a chapbook of these and maybe (?) (I am not an artist) illustrate them myself. We shall see. Thank you for putting up with my long lapses and absences. Things are still not too good here…but I just keep walking by the open windows, and putting one foot in front of another (smiles). Love you…..Gay
I think I remember these from before, at least some of them. You are so good at this style of writing, Gay. I can’t pick out which one pleases me the most. They all do! So very succinct.
These do work I suppose, but they aren’t the ones I inked today. They’re here:
http://beachanny.blogspot.com/2016/01/3-imagy-poems.html
Thanks Victoria. Always appreciate you and what you do for the community!
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This is such an interesting evolution here of your work — a wholly fresh (to me, at least) take on poetry-to-music. Without much more than a Wikipedean introduction to Bausch, I picked up immediately the jazzy European bistro swing of it, a movement heavily shadowed by the Reich and immense death. The maturity of your poetry finds a way to dance and explicate at the same time, each stanza like a lieder, one song from that book. These Part One vignettes were for me like the first encounters with that dance, they’re more sensual and emotional than Part Two, after the first night in that club, still smelling a bit of wine and smoke. Stung more deeply from all the realities of jazz in smoky places. The heart of the dance.