Category Archives: GERMANY

Apology of The Dance Floor

Posted on by

0

imageimageimageimageimage

I arrived in wintery Berlin beaten and bruised-hearted.

I’m on my sixth month of gypsiness around the world. This is by choice, so I would never dare to complain about it, but sleeping on sofas and being jobless whilst processing a brutal breakup is getting somewhat rough.

But Berlin’s nightlife shifted my moods and softly helped me reopen to life.

I was invited to a Russian Disco themed party on Saturday night. It was organised by the tenants of a communal building, typical alternative Berlin life style. They had turned the top floor into a genuine USSR flashback. There was a body search performed by officers in uniform to access the premises. I got stamped with a red star on my left hand and got in. The event reminded me of the Brighton-based performance group Duckie. A band of fake Pussy Riots was playing. DIY Orthodox icons, ice skaters and Matrioshkas frames were hanging on the walls. Someone put a communist hat on my head and that was it, the spirit of the East was in me. I danced till 4am. God! It saved my life. I felt deeply happy and full of perspectives again for the first time in months. A guy much younger than me came to me and put a drink in my hand saying  he had been watching me dancing. He was cuuuute. He flirted with me all night and I remembered that people will like me again.

I went to bed at 5am on Sunday and made my way alone to the Berghain at tea time. The Berghain is Berlin’s most mythic club. It’s located in a Stalinian building which used to be a power station near a wasteland. It’s reputed to have the best techno and electro sound in the world. It’s also famous for its entrance policy: not everyone gets in and nobody knows what the selection is based upon. The Berghain has legendary back-rooms and a very particular atmosphere inside. There’s barely no light, no mirrors in the bathrooms, no photos allowed, and the most admitted outfit is of BDSM tendency together with football socks and Doc Martens shoes.

I didn’t wear any of this but still managed to get in after queuing ten minutes, but everyone seemed to get in that day. I paid 16€ and got a stamp that said “Faggot” on my right hand. With the red star that remained on my left hand, my hands were saying “Communist Faggot”, aka “I had a great Berlin weekend”.

I only stayed couple of hours inside, I was wandering around the different floors and spaces to observe people’s style and vibe. There was a lot of charismatic creatures like I love. I felt good by myself. Only one person talked to me. He asked:
“Do you like beer?
– No.
– Do you like cocaine?
– No.”

He gave up on me. I laughed and I danced alone in the small room with hundreds of strangers. The music was really great, even the Kylie Minogue remix. I was relieved that I was able to be happy alone in a crowd. I felt my heart pumping and my blood running faster.

Dancing saved my life again. When I walked out of the club, I found an authentic 70s disco ball vintage top on the street. The universe loves party girls.

Someone once said in front of me that they got a “more authentic life” once they stopped partying. What a silly thing to say. Why would partying be superficial?

I totally consider that partying can be a spiritual practice. I have never done drugs in my whole life and I don’t even drink much these days. It’s all about the human encounters and burning the dance floor in liberating outfits. You can be the quintessence of yourself for an ephemeral moment, and there’s infinite truth in that.

The dance floor is where people reveal themselves. It unlocks moments of realness. It triggers epiphanies. It’s always been my way to find redemption and feel alive again. When everything else goes wrong, I know the dance will take me back to the present moment and provide me flashes of pure joy.

At the Russian Disco, there was a guy in a wheelchair on the dance floor. He stayed for a long time. People were dancing with him. It was great to watch.

I’ll never forget one of my most beautiful dance floor moments. It was in Lisbon, in 2012. I was visiting the city alone and was living up the night life, the best I’ve experienced. I went to dance at the Finalmente, the only drag show club in Portugal. The crowd was all gay men. We were only two or three girls. I spotted a very short man in his early 50s, wearing an elegant shirt. I noticed him cause he looked like my former economy teacher in high school. I started observing him. He was dancing his heart off with closed eyes. He was so dedicated. He seemed alone in the world. He didn’t pay the slightest attention to people around him. He moved me to the core cause he was so present to himself and there was something nostalgic about him. I made up a whole story about his life in my head: he was coming from a village far from the capital and couldn’t assume his gayness till a very advanced age. People had been picking on him all his life. He finally moved to Lisbon to be himself, and was finding his way and salvation dancing every night at the Finalmente. But he was still closing his eyes not to read any judgement in people’s glances just yet. He would dance with open eyes some day soon.

I still have his expression of realness printed in my memory. This is when I realised the deep therapeutic powers of the dance floor and gained eternal respect for its benefits.

I’m leaving Berlin in two days. Spring has arrived in the meantime. I know I’ll end up living here.

Glamorous Homelessness

Posted on by

1

imageimageimageimageimageimageimageimage

I’ve disappeared.

Some people have been asking me where in the world I currently am. I also have a hard time following my own peregrinations. Things didn’t quite turn out the way I planned.

So. What happened?

I last posted in November from Buenos Aires, at the beginning of my Latin America adventures.

Then.

In a nutshell: I went to Brazil. I proposed someone to marry me. She said yes. Actually, she said “Of course!” And everything collapsed in front of my eyes in the course of 7 days. I left Brazil at the beginning of 2017 to explore Patagonia alone. I had big highs and big lows. I hit the bottom of sadness as I hit the bottom of the world, in Ushuaia. Because I couldn’t go any more down geographically and emotionally, I knifed my way to the surface again.

From the Land of Fire, I jumped on a plane to Buenos Aires. There was a heat wave in the metropolis. One day, as I was walking to the Recoleta cemetery to visit Evita’s grave, I was hit by the certitude that my trip was over. I had seen what I wanted to see and lived what I had to live.

I prepared my emergency exit, spending hours figuring out how to get my ass to Europe ASAP. Anywhere in Europe. The cheapest destination occurred to be Paris, my birth place. The day after, I was flying back “home” on a two day journey via Atlanta and New York. Trump was omnipresent in the background of my US stops. I realised it wasn’t a joke anymore.

I landed in Paris-Orly on a Tuesday morning at the end of January. It was my first time landing in my home country since 2009. First time I was lining up in the “Citizens” passport check in 8 years. There was a cold wave. I had no clothes with me, just a little backpack, cause I have left all my stuff in Brazil. My belongings are scattered across 3 countries.

I contacted a very few friends to open me their door because I don’t have a home right now anywhere in the world.

My friend C welcomed me with croissants for my back home breakfast and gave me tights, socks and an adaptor to charge my phone. That was 23 days ago.

Since then, everyone has been donating me clothes. Beautiful ones. So I feel like a super glamor homeless.

I’ve been hanging out in people’s homes while they’re working. I’m offering myself the luxury to process my emotions as a full time job. I’m not trying to distract myself. I barely go see things or do anything. I’m spending most of my time seating alone to preserve the exact nature of my intense emotions. The last few months have been the most extraordinary, challenging and earth-shattering of my life.

I’m writing this in London, at the Circus Cafe in Crouch End. London is one of my energetic centres. There’s 6 years of my life here. I sleep in a whole lot of different beds and sofas. I love it. I am surrounded by an army of good souls who open me their door and provide me with everything I need, may it be a bed for the night, breakfast, words of comfort or Dragon Red Chanel nail polish. In exchange, I tell life stories, listen to life stories, and do the washing up.

I’m also hanging out in London to consult a transgender woman therapist. She’s bad ass. I pay £97 per hour and she holds the sessions in socks. I take off my shoes too and we become super casual. She told me that she revealed herself in Berlin in the 80s, “like David Bowie”. Everyday after work, she would take off her male suit and hang out at the Kit Kat Klub where she grew to be the woman she was born to be. I adore her already. She says that I become animated when I talk about my writing. She told me: “You’re going to write that book and I want a copy.” So I must do it.

I’m going to experiment glamorous homelessness in Berlin next. I’m going on Tuesday. I have no plans. I want to spend my days in free art galleries and write my book in cafés. And maybe reconnect with my queer dancer late at night in interlope clubs?

This is my life as of now. I love it. I love my life. I’ve never felt that much centred and that much awake in the present moment. I know I’m on the right track, as in MY track.

I’ll return to a more structured life sooner or later. I was proposed a flat-share in Paris. I said YES! So, by the spring, all my scattered belongings will converge to the 13th arrondissement. I’ll store my suitcases under my bed and I’ll have an address and a job again.

I’m truly excited about that perspective.

Till then. Anything can happen. I’m wide open. Life is fab.

Embrace The Glorious Mess That You Are (Berlin)

Posted on by

0

12311161_10153399580718068_412300556339876677_n12295527_10153399581798068_4410632326484154106_n12314095_10153399582393068_1339049124945499858_n12313944_10153399581518068_8011284228349956319_nphoto12278907_10153399581673068_7221834926563025217_n12308760_10153399580888068_5372973599044169046_nphoto(1)12310683_10153399581618068_8857633118026613155_n11215844_10153399581243068_4730975836332218904_n

I can’t recall a period of my life when my human relationships were messier nor richer than they are now. There’s been a fabulously confusing mist of boys & girls dancing hectically around me in the last month.

Let me describe the course of the events exactly as they have been unfolding.

On a Wednesday at the end of October, I went on a set up date with a barber born the same year as me. That was promising as ALL the girls from 1983 are awesome. We had a great time. I remember genuinely laughing and being relieved to find someone easy going. She then disappeared in the middle of a text conversation and hasn’t really reappeared since. To be continued?

The following weekend I had extreme sex with a dominatrix from Greece at a party called Girl Pile which concept is “Cookies & Girls only sex”. You can choose to bake or fuck or both at your convenience. The queer dom was my first Greek since the one who broke my heart. I decided this would seal my reconciliation with the Hellenic culture. I kept marks on my body for a few days but it was instructive and funny. I found out that, by a tour de force of fate, the next party of the kind is going to take place in the building where I used to live with the above mentioned Greek who broke my heart. I’m definitely going. Synchronic closure.

The day after, I received a message from a doctor that I was chatting with in March. We didn’t meet back then. She reappeared eight months later, simply saying “Hello”. I replied, amused by the interesting timing.

A few hours before Paris terrorist attacks, I made a step into the direction of the man whom I’ve been wondering for eighteen months if I like him or if it’s something else. My curiosity suddenly became unbearable: I got an irrational urge to investigate the nature of that unusual attraction. I drafted a message and pressed Send at 3.18pm after much tergiversation. I slept my way through the rest of the day out of emotional drain. It may sound exaggerated, but exposing some unspoken feelings to a man that I don’t really know was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done.

The man replied. It was hard to interpret his answer. I replied to his reply. He replied to my reply again. I left it there cause he’s not seizing the balloon I am throwing at him. It’s not going anywhere. He’s obviously not interested in me at the extent that I thought he would. I am burying my first ever desire for a straight man with the satisfaction that I’ve tried something and that I’m a brave love soldier.

The day I made a definitive cross over him, I decided without any apparent correlation to forgive the Greek who broke my heart (see above). Was there a correlation? As in getting rid of the two strongest yet hopeless heart swings I’ve had in my life. Like a curettage after a twin miscarriage. A few instants only after I verbalised to the universe that I was forgiving her, she coincidentally and indirectly manifested in my inbox. Dear her. Our timings have always been energetically so tuned, like our bodies used to be when we were making love. I hadn’t heard the sound of her voice since August 2014. That epic time, we had the last and memorable fight out of a long traumatising series: I yelled at her on a train platform and stored the memories of her in a faraway galaxy.

As she manifested, I felt the moment had come to dissolve our ghosts. I called her in the middle of the night. “Hello. Have we met?” I said when she picked up. We laughed. It feels like it was the first time we were on the same wave length and we were understanding each other. We spoke two hours about what had been occurring in our respective life since that ugly ending. In substance, we told each other: “I’ve been working my ass off at recovering from you and trying to find myself and my place in the world. I’m not quite there yet, but I’m ok now and I will always care for you.”

A couple of days later, I was supposed to finally meet the above mentioned doctor for the first time, but I was washed off by my disorganized emotions and I was dreaming of a solitary cinema screening. She called me in the evening whilst she was packing to spend the weekend in Berlin. I was hearing her voice for the first time. “Why don’t you come to Berlin with me?” she asked. “OK”, I said. I booked tickets, threw clothes in my flowery suitcase and made my way to a stranger’s house in order to travel with her.

This is how I landed under the heavily snowing skies of Berlin yesterday morning, wearing a thin shiny raincoat, to hang out all weekend with a lez GP, an adorable Ecuadorean girl who makes jewels shaped as shits and a giant Australian guy who’s a dyke hag. Me and the girls were all about 5ft tall and the dude was 6ft 6. I asked him if he felt like Snow White with us. He did. We went from one party to the other till 6am. At our first stop in a regular house converted into a bar just by hanging a disco ball from the ceiling, a choir of lyrical singers was performing. At the next venue, a very intoxicated guy made jokes about my height and wouldn’t let go off my hand. He was super excited to tell me that in Australia, he knew a gastro-enterologist called Doctor Butt.

Berlin night life.

We slept four people in a flat booked for one person. Tall Australian guy put his hand around my waist in my sleep. It took me by surprise that I liked it. Will my next love affair be a boy? I have a vague intuition that it will.

My “date” was the weirdest I’ve ever had. I am not sure if she 1/was intimidated 2/was testing me 3/found me obnoxious from the moment she opened the door 4/had a humour that I couldn’t get at all. I was thrown off the whole time. At some point she told me that it took her days and days of shopping to find the perfect sofa that she would want to look at everyday, and it was the same with the perfect partner. So I felt evaluated like an Ikea item. When we really managed to talk about real stuff face to face, it was nice, but overall it feels like she consciously or not did everything in her power to discourage me. I chose to laugh at the situation and embrace the glorious randomness of my life. I am glad I went on that human adventure.

Between each recent episode of my life, my gay husband Í consoles me, advises me, listens to me and cuddles me. He sleeps in my bed every Monday and we analyze my love disasters of the previous week. We touch each other very slowly and spend hours discussing our repulsion/attraction of the opposite sex holding each other in the dark. Another kind of ghost dissolving.

I’m on the plane back from Berlin as I’m compiling the highlights of the last five weeks. I’m somewhat nerve-wrecked and even more emotionally exhausted than usual. But I love it because I don’t know anything else.

There’s always been a shit ton of people in my perimeter, yet I sleep alone most of the time.  People only seem to be into the first layer of me. Do they freak out at the thought of opening Pandora’s box?

Right before getting on my Berlin trip, I told my best friend that I was aiming at spending a normal weekend for a change and that I failed again. She said: “Have you ever had a normal weekend in your life? You’re LIVING.”

The Pina Bausch Series – Episode #2: Wuppertal

Posted on by

0

 Schwebebahn

In February 2006 I went with α on an adventure to the home of the TanzTheater Pina Bausch: a weird city in the Ruhr called Wuppertal. It was my first anniversary with Pina, one year that she had slapped my face with her extraordinary dance theatre.

Wuppertal is famous for its upside down subway, the Schwebebahn. The train is actually hanging from the rails. It is disturbing to be in there when travelling above the river. The Schwebebahn gives a funny and unique look to the city. I also read in an interview of Pina that Wuppertal has an abnormal number of sects. I can see why people there would be desperate to enrol in something that would give a meaning to their life. It is a gloomy land.

The piece, Kontakthof, was performed in her theatre, an old cinema turned into a live performance space. It fitted her work perfectly. Everything about the place made sense with her. Seeing a show in the choreographer’s natural habitat helped me understand her better.

At the end of the show, when the dancers were bowing, I saw a very long and thin arm in the left wing of the stage. It was her so characteristic arm, recognisable among millions. She was giving directions to the dancers. I was moved to feel her presence, even invisible in the backstage.

The year after, I came back to the Ruhr to take the entrance audition at the Folkwang Hochschule, where Pina Bausch was the head of the dance department.

It was my second attempt. I didn’t even make the first cut, so I found myself alone in the Ruhr with a couple of days to kill.

I managed to find my way to the Zollverein, a sublime and impressive disaffected industrial complex right outside Essen, where they used to exploit the coal mines. The huge structure and machinery are still there but they got all covered with vegetation after the last coal was extracted in 1986. The place has been turned into a cultural complex, there is a museum, performances and other arty things going on.

I got lost alone in this Heterotopia for a whole day. The sun was out. There was no other living soul walking around the beauty of the premises. I adore industrial buildings and I had it all to myself. I felt like the Queen of an abandoned Kingdom. My heart was sinking and swinging between a feeling of immense freedom and images from Germinal by Emile Zola. A lot of human drama must have taken place where I was walking.

The human drama was still perceptible despite the beauty of the architecture, the nature growing over the brick buildings and the vivid light of July.

At this instant, I understood where all the darkness and despair omnipresent in the pieces of Pina Bausch were rooted. She was a child of the Ruhr. She soaked in the atmosphere of the coal mines since she had been born. “The Ruhr was her essence” said one day Pina’s friend Gérard Violette, former director of the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris.

This is exactly what it was. That day, alone in the immensity of the remnants of the 19th century industrial revolution with its flow of hopes and disillusions, I felt the essence of Pina Bausch.

 Zollverein

The Pina Bausch Series – Episode #3: The Audition

Posted on by

0

Pina2

In 2006, upon my return from Wuppertal, I applied for the entrance exam at the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen – the University of the Arts where Pina was the director of the dance department.

One day, I received a letter in German, which I speak well enough to understand that I was invited to their auditions in July, right before my 23rd birthday.

It was the summer when Germany hosted the World Cup. There was a heat wave, both in the climate and in the atmosphere. I remember sweating days and nights. It’s been among the most intense few days of my life. I’ve never been under such adrenaline. I had randomly booked a hostel called “Goal Fever” and the name didn’t strike me until I found 2 hooligan-looking dudes sleeping in my supposingly female-only dorm. I had a moment of panic. Something as intense as climbing the Everest was expecting me, and I had to focus. No time for drunken football drama. Thank God, England was soon eliminated and all the guests went home. I was almost completely alone in the property. I remember rehearsing late at night in the empty corridors. Awesome feeling.

There were three rounds of audition held by some of the legendary dancers of Pina Bausch – Malou Airaudo, Dominique Mercy and Lutz Förster among others – with a call back the day after for those who had made the cut at the end of each day.

There were ballet and contemporary classes every day, improvisation, and répertoire. We learned excerpts from The Rite of the Spring so the jury could gauge how percussive our energy was. Malou Airaudo – the Goddess who was in the original cast of the piece – was demonstrating the movements. I had to really focus to pick them up quickly, just because I wanted to indulge into watching the beauty of the mythical dancer without having to worry about getting the choreography right. I have to say that it felt quite natural to my angry nature to incorporate that piece. I will forever regret That I never worked with Pina directly, even one single time.

I made it to the last round together with 34 other dancers. The final round took place the day after France got qualified for the World Cup finale, so dancers and football players were all kinda on the same boat.

At the end of a very intense day of audition, they called the 18 names who had won their entrance ticket to the School. I wasn’t one of them. It was the worst disappointment of my life. I left the studio right after and I headed to the airport to fly back.

I started crying on the bus and it lasted for three days. A huge German lady grabbed me to give me a hug without asking. I started crying in her arms and I was feeling like a ridiculous dwarf. I created a movement of curiosity and compassion throughout the city of Essen that day, because I was crying super hard everywhere I was going. I sat in front of the station, waiting for the bus to the airport, and I triggered an unprecedented solidarity drive. I am smiling when I look back at this episode.

Random people were handing me tissues, candies, cigarettes. Someone asked if they should call the police or if it was just a boyfriend issue. I didn’t try to explain that the person who broke my heart in a thousand pieces was a famous choreographer in her 60s. Why are you always supposed to be desperate over a boy when you are a cute blondie? I only articulated one explanation in German: “My life is over!”

I was so messed up that when I finally got to the airport, I didn’t recognise anything. I asked a nice lady at the info desk. She confirmed my awful impression. I was at the wrong airport. I had stopped crying for a moment because I was completely dried out, but there was apparently an unexpected reserve of water inside me, so I collapsed on the counter and cried more. The nice lady gave me a cake. Germans are awesome, they always carry a bunch of food in their handbag just in case they need to cheer up strangers.

I failed my audition and missed my plane on the same day. I didn’t know anyone in town so I went back to the completely deserted hostel to spend the night. There wasn’t even a staff member when I left early in the morning. I finally made my way back home completely spaced out. I was so depressed the following days that I even ate a hamburger in front of the World Cup finale. I am a vegetarian and I was eating steak when Zidane hit Materazzi with his head. What a disastrous evening.

Because I am fucking stubborn, I tried the entrance exam again the year after. This time, I didn’t even make the first cut. They knew they didn’t want me. I was tempted to do the whole crying scenario again but I kept it minimal. I sobbed a little in a café and a lovely couple proposed me something to eat. Hahahahaha.

Two girls entered the café and walked at me. They were students of the dance school and they watched the auditions. They asked me how it went today. I said that I was out. They said they remembered me from the year before and that they didn’t understand why I hadn’t got in, because from their perspective, I had the profile the school was looking for. They kept saying “Komisch, komisch!” (“Bizarre, bizarre”). They were so sweet. They told me in German: “We want to tell you that we are big fans of yours. Please keep dancing!!!”

I remembered that story a few days ago in front of a dance performance. Oh girls, I fucked up. That’s the story of my life. I get in where I don’t fit and I don’t get in where I fit.

My life is not over, though. Right?

.Pina

The Pina Bausch Series – Episode #5: The Pilgrimage

Posted on by

2

IMG_0087IMG_0048IMG_0061IMG_0063IMG_0057 IMG_0082IMG_0041 IMG_0019

Throughout 2014, the City of Wuppertal organised festivities to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the TanzTheater Pina Bausch.

As a true Pina disciple, I had aligned all my stars to be present.

I went on an lonely 4-day pilgrimage to pay my respects to the woman who changed my life, and whom I presumptuously think of as my Spiritual Mother.

I arrived in Wuppertal on a grey day of January. The weather was as humid as my heart. I had dragged myself to the airport in tears because my lost love had been stirring the knife in the wound. This is the context in which I re-established connection with Wuppertal, 8 years after my first visit.

Had anything changed or was it conform to my memories?

The city was impregnated with Pina’s presence. Every public building was carrying her mark. The gloomy atmosphere of the Ruhr smelled of her ferocious dance-theatre.

I lived in her trail for 4 days.

I was staying at an isolated hostel up the hill of Wuppertal, in the middle of the woods, almost by myself in the building. An incredibly meditative Pina retreat started.

My loneliness was resonating in my temples. I loved it.

I attended workshops taught by dancers of the company. The first one was held by Nayoung Kim at the dance studio of the Wuppertal Opera. I shivered when I got changed in the dressing rooms used by the Gods of the TanzTheater Pina Bausch. I shivered when I glanced outside the window of the dance studio, thinking that all the cult pieces that shook me on stage had been created and rehearsed with that view.

I shivered all along.

The second workshop was held by a dancer I didn’t know and Malou Airaudo, one of the most emblematic female dancers of the company. Oh My God. Watching Malou. I remember thinking, when looking at Malou Airaudo, that we are all equal as human beings, but some contain so much more than some others. I don’t know. It just feels like the dancers of Pina Bausch contain the whole world and they are yet so fluid and slender. How do they contain that much? They are a different breed of human beings. That’s all I can say to summarise them.

Malou Airaudo is rough but huge-hearted as a teacher. Everything about her screams generosity, starting with her impressive hair. I had already dealt with her at the Folkwang Hochschule auditions. She’s abrupt in an awesome way. You can tell she never had time to beat around the bushes in her demanding dancer’s life. During the technical class, she was correcting us without ceremony. She was showing us movements and was then saying: “And I am 66!” as an evidence of how much more bravery we could use at our young age. It isn’t a matter of age though. It is simply her nature to be ten times as gorgeous as all of us together. Malou Airaudo is pure strength, pure wildness, pure sophisticated yet untamed dance. I rarely saw pure dance from that close.

Then.

I saw a piece at the Wuppertal Opera House, ‘For the Children of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow’. 

I saw exhibitions of photographs, stage props, set sketches, costumes from pieces I had seen or not.

I saw an installation made by the stage designer of the company in the beautiful glass building featured in the tribute movie by Wim Wenders. It was a funny moment. I sneaked in the park where the glass building is located, at the top of a hill above Wuppertal. I had gone all the way up pulling my suitcase. Again, I was completely alone in the park. Everywhere I was going, I was completely alone. A man finally came to me and asked me in German how I had managed to get in, because the park was closed to the public that day. He was kind enough to let me finish my sandwich.

I saw all that could possibly be seen about 40 years of dance theatre by Pina Bausch.

In between the stages of my pilgrimage, I was furtively crying because my lost love had been stirring the knife in the wound.

On the last day, it was time to complete the ultimate mission of the journey. I wanted to go on Pina Bausch’s grave to talk to her and thank her for opening my eyes on what life really is about. I wanted to tell her that her show ‘Nelken’ was the highest moment of my life.

There are at least 7 cemeteries in Wuppertal and it was a true investigation to track the one where Pina was buried (without internet access to make it burningly challenging.) I don’t remember how I put the pieces together, but I found the name of the correct place and managed to find my way to it. Again, it was up a hill and I was pulling my suitcase. (I don’t know why, I often walk alone up hills throughout the world carrying heavy stuff.)

I wanted to put carnations on her grave, as a tribute to ‘Nelken’ (‘carnations’ in German).

There was a little flower shop at the entrance of the cemetery. Flower man had two carnations left. I had 1.50€ on me that I should have kept to take the bus, but well. “How much for the two carnations?” I asked. –“One is a bit broken so I can do both for 1.50€”. I smiled. I am sure that Pina was watching the scene. He gave me a map with the path to find her, and he kept my luggage.

I found her resting place easily. Near a pond and tall trees. That’s the closest I ever got to her.

How much do I regret never talking to her, even a few words, never taking a class with her, never exposing my dance to her glance. All those years of adoration until she passed away, I had an anchored certitude that I would end up meeting her some day, even somehow working with her just a bit. It was so obvious that the announce of her sudden death left me hammered and sceptical.

There I was standing on her grave, donating her my two humble flowers which were so small and ridiculous compared to the thousands she had inundated my heart with. How much do I love this woman? It is insane. I love her more than so many people I should morally love more than Pina Bausch.

I wrote her a thank you card with a woman dressed as a man. I cried a moment and asked her how she had dealt with the loss of her love*. It comforted me a little.

It started raining.

I left to catch my plane.

*Rolf Borzik, Pina Bausch’s great love and first stage designer, died of leukemia in 1980.

For further reading about Pina Bausch, see my articles (in French) posted on Toute La Culture, including reviews of Vollmond, Two Cigarettes in the Dark, and Masurca Fogo, a portrait of Pina by those who knew her and a reflection about why female artists, including Pina Bausch, are systematically labelled feminists.