“I think it’s interesting to surround ‘Café Müller’ with these pieces about nudity, sexuality and desire, because the café is full of desires,” Charmatz said. For that bill, he will use outside dancers that he has previously collaborated with in addition to Tanztheater members. (Although Charmatz is a major name in contemporary dance, he has never had a permanent company, preferring to work on a project-by-project basis.)
There will also be revivals of two major Bausch pieces, “Nelken (Carnations)” and “Viktor,” which will tour internationally, as will “Vollmond” and “Sweet Mambo.” Several works by Charmatz — including “Somnole,” “étrangler le temps + boléro 2” and “10000 gestes” — will also tour, but, while being part of the Tanztheater Wuppertal season, will not be performed by its dancers. Charmatz himself plans to perform in “Somnole,” a solo, and in “Etrangler le temps,” a duo with Emmanuelle Huynh. (“So, one Tanztheater member,” he said.)
“I only have one artistic project,” Charmatz said. “I have a company name, Terrain, which specializes in outside events and my repertoire, and this remains structurally and financially independent from Tanztheater Wuppertal, but we are linked. There is my repertoire, the Pina Bausch repertoire and what we do together.”
Charmatz said that he was excited about the plans for the Pina Bausch Center, which will link a 1960s theater, the Schauspielhaus, where Tanztheater Wuppertal will perform, with a new, multiuse building that will incorporate rehearsal rooms, public space and archives, as well as offices for the Pina Bausch Foundation.
Bausch’s son, Salomon, who created the foundation and started working on the archive soon after her death, said that the center would provide not just space to house thousands of videos, photographs, posters, articles and books — which already are partially available online — but also performance venues for the foundation to produce pieces with nondancers or other institutions.
“Pina’s work is very rooted in the city, but it could be even more accessible,” Salomon Bausch said. “I am really thrilled that the center could be a public space, a place of exchange, open to all.”