Pina Bausch: Confronting Bodily Norms

The lecture on the work of Pina Bausch will focus on a frequently addressed and problematized phenomenon of the author's performances – gender struggle, which is considered to be an essential characteristic of the Wuppertal Dance Theatre by numerous theoreticians and historians alike. Most interpreters dealing with Pina Bausch’s work tend to focus on how her performances portray power relationships persisting as inherently present in erotic negotiations, as well as on the approach her performances take in order to trace gender conflicts and explore gender roles as something compulsory. The lecture will introduce certain examples from performances in order to assert that the act of producing and portraying normative images of femininity and masculinity, as seen in the persistent repetition of that very theme in Pina Bausch’s performances, speaks to the fact that bodies being signified in terms of gender is nothing but a metaphor for all other possible signifying practices and norms – disciplines that the body is subject to. Katja Praznik

Organized by: City of Women; In collaboration with: Kiberpipa.