Biography

Pina Bausch was born July 24, 1940 in Solingen, Germany.  Her parents August and Anita Bausch, owners of a café, named her Phillippine and she was the third child in the family.    In 1955, at the age of 14, Pina started her dance training at the Folkwangschule in Essen, Germany.  The director of the school was Kurt Jooss, who was a major influence in the German Expressionist dance movement.  In 1958 Pina Bausch graduated from folkwangschule and continued her studies at Julliard in New York City.  She was awarded a scholarship for her education at Julliard.  While there her teachers consisted of jose Limon, Antony Tudor, Paul Sanasardo, and Paul Taylor.  In New York, she danced in the Paul Sanasardo and Donya Feuer Dance Company, New American Ballet, and Metropolitan Opera Ballet that was being directed by Antony Tudor.  In 1962 Pina Bausch joined the Folkwang Ballett Company, that was directed by Kurt Jooss, a soloist and an assistant to Kurt Jooss.  The first time Pina choreographed for the Folkwang Ballett was in 1968.  In 1969 she succeeded Kurt Jooss and began the artistic director of the Folkwang Ballet Company.  In 1973 she became the artistic director of the Wuppertal Opera Ballet that was later named the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch.  During the time that Pina Bausch was in direction of the Tanztheater Wuppertal, she choreographed her most extravagant works that made her a profound choreographer during her time.  For example; Le Sacre du printemps(1975) was choreography that had the dancer perform on a stage covered in dirt, Carnations(1983) was a production that called for the stage to be completely covered in silk carnations, and Arien(1985) was a performance that asked for the dancers move in ankle-deep water on the stage.  In 1980 her husband Rolf Borzik died of leukemia.  He was the primary set and costume designer for Pina Bausch.  In 1981 she met her life companion Ronald Kay, which later she had her son Rolf with.  Pina Bausch died June 30, 2009, five days after she received her diagnosis of an unstated cancer.

Much of Pina Bausch’s choreography in her early life was very controversial and emotion based movement, compared to her later work that was more romantic based.  In the early 2000’s Pina received many awards from several different theaters and foundations.  She was a major contributor to the expansion of the genre tanztheater or dance-theater that was originally created by Rudolf von Laban in the 1920’s.  Dance-theater is movement that is based on the complete freedom and removal of ballet vocabulary and creation of movement from the dancer’s emotional expression.