Café Müller & The Rite of SpringHong Kong Arts FestivalThe 45th Hong Kong Arts Festival

"A magical quality of remembering"
The Guardian ★★★★★ (on Café Müller and The Rite of Spring)

Two ground-breaking piece of Pina Bausch in one evening
Fears, fantasies and dream-life

“Watching Bausch is like a masterclass in characterisation, worth more than thousands of hours of conversation” Fiona Shaw (actress)

Performed by Pina Bausch’s incomparable Tanztheater Wuppertal, the dreamy sadness of Café Müller contrasts with the hot, dark, primitive The Rite of Spring.

Set to snatches of melancholic Purcell arias, Café Müller (1978) reveals a set of characters seemingly sleepwalking in and out of a deserted café. It draws on Pina’s earliest memories of childhood in Germany, growing up in her parents’ tavern during the worst of wartime. Seen through the uncomprehending eyes of a young girl, adult relationships play out in a devastated, dislocated society. Café Müller is filled with emotion, intensity, and “a magical quality of remembering” (The Guardian). It aims straight for the heart.

The Rite of Spring (1975) was the first work to bring Pina international acclaim. With overwhelming themes of biological imperative and savage fertility rites, Stravinsky’s music explodes across a stage of dark earth, golden light, powerfully muscled men, and women from whose number a sacrificial victim will be chosen.

Previous successful visits have made Pina Bausch’s work well known to Hong Kong audiences. Soaking up the city’s vibrant lifestyle and atmosphere, a three-week residency in 1996 produced The Window Washer, a specially commissioned new piece for 1997 HKAF.

As a special feature of its 45th anniversary, the HKAF is proud to present two of Pina Bausch’s most famous and seminal works. Surreal, dreamlike, unmissable, they have defined the psychological landscape of modern dance.