{ u n i v e r s a l / r e f o r m e r }
Also, one day our dance teacher LT at the Conservatoire in Brussels took us to Wuppertal. Le Sacre Du Printemps. by Pina Bausch. I never saw something like this. I was shaking. The whole public , a full opera house, jumping up after Stravinsky's last note, applauding till the Tanztheater shivvered. The dancers bow. In another world. The dance took them far out of the theatre. They were exhausted to the core. We clap clap clap.
I had an experience I shall never forget: all the children had to lie on their stomachs and lift up their feet and legs, bending them forwards and placing them to the right and left of their heads. Not all the children were able to do this, but for me it was no problem at all. And the teacher said at the time: “You’re a real contortionist.” Of course I didn’t know what that meant. Yet I knew from the intonation, how she had said the sentence, that it must be something special.
My parents had to work a great deal and weren’t able to look after me. In the evenings, when I was actually supposed to go to bed, I would hide under the tables and simply stay there. I found what I saw and heard very exciting: friendship, love, and quarrels – simply everything that you can experience in a local restaurant like this. I think this stimulated my imagination a great deal. I have always been a spectator. Talkative, I certainly wasn’t. I was more silent. My first time on the stage, I was five or six. It was in a ballet evening – the sultan’s harem and his favourite wives. The sultan lay on a divan with many exotic fruits. I was made up and dressed as a Moor and had to spend the whole performance wafting air towards him with a great fan. One thing was always clear for me; I didn’t want to do anything other than be involved in the theatre. Nothing else but dance.
My mother loved walking barefoot in the snow. And having snowball fights with me, or building igloos. She liked climbing trees. And she was tremendously frightened during thunderstorms. She would hide in the wardrobe behind the coats.
Man kann nicht viel daruber sagen.
Man muss kuchen.
Frau muss putzen.
Knal!