There is some absolute beauty in Vollmond, one of the last pieces made by pioneering German choreographer Pina Bausch before her death in 2009. A curtain of water dramatically falls from the sky, shimmering in the light, plumes of the stuff arcing into the air and crashing against the giant, monolithic rock that dominates the stage (designer Peter Pabst is almost as much an author of this work as Bausch). Water is a recurring theme in Bausch’s work and here it rains down, spurts from mouths, is thrown from buckets and poured into overflowing glasses, impossible to catch or control.
Bausch’s other great recurring theme is the endless cycle of flawed human habits (Vollmond means “full moon”, more cycles) and the power play and pettiness between men and women. Her men are always smartly dressed in shirts, her women ever glamorous in spaghetti-strap gowns and long, swishing hair – yearning nostalgically for a more glamorous era while deriding its mores.
