Dear ladies and gentlemen,

As the final series of performances in Wuppertal during the 2024/2025 season – before an international tour to Paris, Aarhus, Copenhagen and Vienna – Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch + Terrain Boris Charmatz present 20 dancers for the XX century and even more, project conceived by Charmatz in 2012 at the Musée de la danse in Rennes, involving 26 dancers, partly from the ensemble and partly guests from Germany and abroad via his French structure Terrain. Will participate as well Wuppertal based dancer and choreographer Ben Wichert from Urban Art Complex.

20 dancers for the XX century and even more has already made guest appearances with a variety of line-ups at such prestigious international art museums as MoMA in New York, Tate Modern in London or the Reina Sofia in Madrid. The distinctive format of this exhibition – realised in the preparation phase for the Pina Bausch Centre – addresses everyone who enjoys dance and the broadest possible range of choreographic styles, offers a sense of the type of artistic impulses and spirit of internationalism a future Pina Bausch Centre might contribute to the city.

Opernhaus Wuppertal

Kurt-Drees-Straße 4, 42283 Wuppertal

Friday, 25 April 2025, 19h30 – 22h30

Saturday, 26 April 2025, 19h30 – 22h30

17:30 – 18:30 Kronleuchterfoyer at the Opernhaus: Public book presentation ‘NAHAUFNAHME Boris Charmatz’

Sunday, 27 April 2025, 15h00 – 18h00

Dration: 3 hours uninterrupted

Opernhaus Wuppertal

Tickets go on sale on 28 February 2025 at 10:00 h.

pina-bausch.de, ticket hotline + 49 (0)202 563 7666

20 dancers for the XX century and even more is a living archive: a concentrated history of dance contemporised by the dancers who embody it. 26 dancers appropriate celebrated or forgotten solo works by modern or postmodern artists from the last century to the present day. Each of the dancers passes on an individual story that contributes to a collective exploration of dance from the pioneers to figures such as Charlie Chaplin, Liza Minnelli and Ko Murobushi, from Mary Wigman to Pina Bausch, from William Forsythe to hip hop and more.

“The starting point was the idea that a dancer’s body is already a museum in itself. It then seemed obvious to devise an exhibition where the bodies and the dances they have danced are the exhibits or the collection. And at the same time twenty bodies are like twenty museums en miniature. The body of Ashley Chen, who danced for Merce Cunningham for a long time, is a museum, the body of Frank Willens, who works a lot with Tino Sehgal, is another and Luciény Kaabral, who began her career with a company in Cape Verde, brings something different again with her. My own body contains works by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Meg Stuart, Isadora Duncan and Vaslav Nijinsky. And since I learned Jan Minařík’s role for ‘Forever (Immersion dans Café Müller de Pina Bausch)’ for the Festival d’Avignon last summer, it also contains something by Pina Bausch. That – to name just a few examples – is the idea. Every dancer not only has a memory, their body is their memory.”

Boris Charmatz in conversation with Marietta Piekenbrock, January 2025

The audience moves freely throughout the building, so everyone can assemble a living dance archive as they wish, they can navigate, linger in and lose themselves. 20 dancers for the XX century and even more is also suitable for families!

With dancers of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch and guests*:

Laura Bachman*, Dean Biosca, Naomi Brito, Magali Caillet Gajan*, Ashley Chen*, Olga Dukhovna*, Bryana Fritz*, Johanna Elisa Lemke*, Filipe Lourenço*, Ditta Miranda Jasjfi, Luciény Kaabral, Barbara Kaufmann, Nayoung Kim, Eddie Martinez, Fabrice Mazliah*, Julien Monty*, Pol Pi*, Manon Santkin*, Julie Anne Stanzak, Michael Strecker, Christopher Tandy, Asha Thomas*, Tsai-Wei Tien, Aida Vainieri, Ben Wichert*, Frank Willens

*guests

Produced by: Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch + Terrain Boris Charmatz

With the generous approval of the Pina Bausch Foundation

Thanks to the Merce Cunningham Trust

The project 20 dancers for the XX century and even more by Boris Charmatz is a contribution to the preparations for the Pina Bausch Centre and is funded as part of its preparatory phase with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and the City of Wuppertal.

Terrain is funded by the Ministry of Culture – DRAC Hauts-de-France and the Région Hauts-de-France.

Tanztheater Wuppertal is funded by the city of Wuppertal and the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Photo: Frank Willens copyright Marc Domage, free of charge if used for current reporting purposes.

Public book presentation NAHAUFNAHME Boris Charmatz

Opernhaus Wuppertal, Kronleuchterfoyer 26 April 2025, 17:30 – 18:30 h

With Boris Charmatz and Marietta Piekenbrock

November 2024 saw the publication NAHAUFNAHME Boris Charmatz. This book is an attempt to portray the artist Boris Charmatz, whose unconventional thinking has influenced an entire generation of dancers and choreographers. Numerous photographs and bonus digital content including film extracts from the archive of director César Vayssié bring to life significant moments from three decades of dance history. The volume is edited by the author and curator Marietta Piekenbrock and Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch + Terrain Boris Charmatz.

Published by Alexander Verlag, Berlin

Entry is free of charge. Please reserve if you plan to attend!

https://bit.ly/NahaufnahmeBorisCharmatz