Gesture as a synthesis of music and choreography in danceoperas: Pina Bausch, Sasha Waltz, Anna Teresa de Keersmaeker

Abstract

The subject of the article is the phenomenon of gesture, combining music and plastic in the genre of danceopera, created by the German choreographer Pina Bausch. The choreographers Sasha Waltz and Anna Teresa de Keersmaeker continued the traditions of the genre. The growth of plastic expressiveness in the modern theater has created prerequisites for its application as a specific artistic form in new types of performances, one of which was the danceopera. Pina Bausch’s goals and innovative aspirations were preserved the traditions of German musical theater by incorporating specific theatrical techniques into the space of a choreographic performance to express individual experience. The danceoperas Orpheus and Eurydice and Iphigenia in Taurida revealed the possibilities of interaction between music and choreography through the forms of the contemporary theatre. The idea of the danceopera as a synthesis of music and gesture has been continued in the works of other choreographers. The technique of dividing the characters between dancers and singers was used by Sasha Waltz in the production of Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas and Anna Theresa de Keersmaeker in her version of Mozart’s opera Everyone Does This. Continuing the traditions of Pina Bausch, the choreographers expanded and transformed the boundaries of the opera genre by turning it into a dance performance.