Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


Epic Tanztheater.pdf (296.09 KB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Epic Tanztheater: Bausch, Brecht, and Ballet Opera

Carson, David J
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1399944052

Abstract Details

2014, Master of Music (MM), Bowling Green State University, Music History.
German choreographer Pina Bausch (1940-2009) spent most of her career as the director of the Tanztheater Wuppertal dance company in Germany. She is known for her 1975 production of Le sacre du printemps, and later for her "World Cities" series of works (1986-2009) created during residencies in ten major world cities. In the 1970s Bausch transitioned from producing "ballet opera" (Ballettoper)−that is, works that closely followed the narrative "framework" of the operas they were based on−to Tanztheater ("dance theatre") which shied away from such explicit storytelling. Like most new theatre in West Germany in the 1970s, Bausch's Tanztheater had roots in Bertold Brecht's conception of epic theatre. Bausch became increasingly Brechtian in her use of music and movement as her style developed, as shown in her collage pieces that do not use entire works of music. Bausch's increasing reliance on collage and fragmentation can be best illustrated through her inclusion of opera music. In this thesis I argue that the influence of Brecht's epic theatre on Bausch's Tanztheater is essential to understanding the development of her aesthetic and, more specifically, her use of music. I discuss her two Gluck ballet operas, Iphigenie auf Tauris (1973) and Orpheus und Eurydike (1975), her Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht evening in 1974 featuring Die sieben Todsunden and Furchtet euch nicht, her non-linear take on Bela Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle, titled Blaubart − Beim Anhoren einer Tonbandaufnahme von Bela Bartoks Oper "Herzog Blaubarts Burg" (1977), and Cafe Muller (1978), which is based on a collage of arias from Henry Purcell's The Fairy Queen as well as Dido and Aeneas.
Eftychia Papanikolaou, Dr. (Advisor)
Susannah Cleveland (Committee Member)
60 p.
Dance; Music
Pina Bausch; Bertolt Brecht; opera; dance; ballet; ballet opera; Tanztheater

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Carson, D. J. (2014). Epic Tanztheater: Bausch, Brecht, and Ballet Opera [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1399944052

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Carson, David. Epic Tanztheater: Bausch, Brecht, and Ballet Opera. 2014. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1399944052.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Carson, David. "Epic Tanztheater: Bausch, Brecht, and Ballet Opera." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1399944052

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1399944052
3,660
© 2014, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Epic Tanztheater: Bausch, Brecht, and Ballet Opera by David J Carson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.