In 2023, the German choreographer Pina Bausch’s groundbreaking company Tanztheater Wuppertal celebrated its 50th birthday. So too did its current leader, Boris Charmatz, born in the French Alpine town of Chambéry in the year Bausch took over a ballet company in North Rhine-Westphalia and renamed it for her dreamlike dance theatre.
Charmatz is acutely aware that he is still catching up on a half century of Wuppertal history. It is partly why the choreographer is also dancing in his own ambitious reframing of Bausch’s agonising signature work, Café Müller, presented six times by different casts alongside interludes with company members, in a stunning seven-hour event at the Avignon festival, where we meet backstage. (He is Avignon’s artiste complice this year, presenting several of his productions.)
