Interview with Bausch dancer and rehearsal dir

Chapter

ABSTRACT

Daphnis Kokkinos interview (February 12, 2019, Wuppertal, Germany) Telory Arendell

Pina had this exercise that at some point she called “aggressive tenderness.” That's what my book is about. I'm wondering what this term means to you in relation to her work and means to you on a personal level. When she asked for you to show her aggressive tenderness, what did this mean to you, and what does it mean to you still?

Daphnis Kokkinos

When I came to the company it was with my generation, so the pieces are looking differently. I had to learn these pieces, learn the part from someone else. For her, it always was the same, but the dancers they are changing, I mean the generations. The work here was different for the 70s, the 80s, the 90s; the work was different, even if it was the same themes or questions the generations were different. It's the same things, we just show them differently, understand differently. Love is the same in the 70s or not, those times or now, the same thing you show differently, and Pina, she always followed her dancers. We change with the time, and she followed us all the time. In other interviews, they wrote she became more soft, and more smiling. And sure, the dancers did. In the new pieces, we all smile. She was also different when she was 30 or 40 or 50 or 60. She had more experience in her mind. When I came young (because now I'm the oldest), there were already more experienced dancers, which was beautiful to work with. They gave me another era, another understanding, another perspective. So, I don't know if she changed, or we changed.

Or maybe she changed in response to you. What do you think she cared about the most in her work?

I think for her it was very important that we would be real, that we don't be fake, or we don't “play” something. She wanted us to be real. Sometimes I told her a story in the restaurant that she likes, and she said “okay, do it tomorrow for rehearsal.” Next day, I told her of course the story, but it is of course different when you tell her in the restaurant or the studio. She said, “no, no, no, you have to say it to me the same way you told it before.” We're not actors, we're dancers, but we have to talk. If we cannot say it with movement, we have to say it with words. … All this was work: the everyday life. Pina said it is very important to know where we are living now, what happened around us. We are not living in a dream world where everything is 127beautiful or not beautiful, but here. She said also that when she goes from the office to come here [to the studio], there is ten meters, but there are so many people around. In these ten meters, you can see a whole life. You see a couple kissing, another fighting, another has drugs, and now a child that is crying, another is alone, another is very funny, it's everything in ten meters. She said that she likes Wuppertal because it's an everyday city. It's not a wicked city where everyone is in beautiful clothes, like in Düsseldorf, this is different; this is real life. I think for her it was very important to know which world we're living in now. And that we also did with research when we visited other cities: that's why we went there, to look. We had to be there with people and see what happens. And to be real. This was very important to her: to be real with feelings, and how with these feelings we can show each one of us. I can show my different feelings to you, a lady from Japan will show the same feelings differently. So this is how we can be different doing the same thing. We are an international company. I'm Greek, I say “hi, how are you?” Being unique from each other was very important. That's why she worked with us individually to find ourselves. And for me, it was a shock! I came from academy, and I thought because I could that I was a ménage dancer with high legs, and here with her, I found out I am exactly the opposite! I didn't know before, and she didn't tell me, I found it myself because of the work she did with me. That's why she worked with me individually; to find out who I am. She wanted me to be honest with me, with my movement, with her. All the dances I did with her were very energetic, very quick, very powerful.

Do you still use extensions?

Of course I do, but not only, because before that was all I did. I found different energies with her. Before that, I had only one energy. With her, I found out I had different ones, and in different situations, I have to react differently.

What was it like working with Wim Wenders on this film that you made? Did you have a part in that? Did you feel like you didn't want to have a part in that? What sort of part did you play?

Actually, it was easy because we just showed all the things that he would use from our performances with Pina in different places, not just on the stage. So I showed him three or four different things that I did with Pina, and after he chose, it was very easy.

It feels, from what I've read, like he wanted to come see what you all wanted to include.

Because it was a film dedicated to Pina, of course for us it was very important to find something that had a story behind it or you want to do, to make a present for Pina. Pina was very important, that's why he let us choose what we could make present to Pina with.

Where do you feel like the company's headed now that she's not here? And I know she's not been here for a while.

Yeah, ten years now, and we are all dancers, and after she passed away, suddenly we had to do different things so we can keep the company alive. I was assisting her for five new productions, so I had to bring these pieces on 128the stage. I had all the information but I didn't know if I could do it because she did it. I had to learn how to do it.

But you still stayed as a group. You didn't have people all leave to go do other things.

No, no, no. The people who left, left. Some people were getting older, some people left for family, some wanted to do something different, but half of the company stayed here. We stayed together and said, “okay, what do we have to do?” We had also in the beginning a director from the company. We are all together and we are still trying to do everything. We had to do five different jobs we never did before because she did everything. And suddenly we had to say, “is it possible?”

She never slept.

She slept for three or four hours. But thinking, always thinking. I don't know how she made it.

Which of her pieces was your favorite one to dance, to watch?

I love Viktor; I'm not original there, but I danced it for many years. I'm now the rehearsal director, and I still love it. I love also the last piece I did with her as a dancer, Sweet Mambo; it's the last of the over 40 we did with her, the older members of the company. There were members from the company, I think we were six girls and three boys, and this for us was the last piece we did with her so we were very attached to it. And the last piece when I was the assistant director that we did in Chile … we lost her in this piece, so I am emotional with that piece, and I like it too. Every day I like a different piece! Sacre was the piece that brought me here. I saw it as a student and I said, “okay, I go there.” Now I am doing The Rite of Spring as a choreographer. The Greek National Ballet asked me to do it and I first said, “I cannot do it!” because I hear the music and I think of Pina's Sacre. But after they said it's not the same orchestra music, it's just piano, four hands, I said “okay, let's hear it.” So I hear it, and it's true, I'm not attached so much with Pina's choreography, so I said “okay, I will try. I start already. It moves. Let's try.”

That's what she did with everything. Just try it, see what happens.

It's beautiful. You know, with all this stuff like Café Müller where they stand up, they fall down, they stand up, they fall down. Someone asked her, “Why do you repeat on the stage?” She said, “I don't repeat, I try again.” It's fantastic, because if you repeat, you do the same. If you try, it's something new. The whole work was this: let's try. She was never satisfied with what we did. She never said, “Oh, beautiful, we're finished with that.”

That's hard though for a perfectionist because there's never an end, it's always a work in progress.

Exactly. Absolutely! Try and try, let's try again.

But did that mean along the way that people said no? I don't want to keep going?

But look, there are people here from ’73 still, so it depends on the person. She never said to someone, “Go away.” I know she was really very sad when 129someone left, but what can you do? She didn't want the person to leave, but, it happens.

Is her most recent work still connected to this earlier push toward aggressive tenderness, or did it change into something completely different?

For me it's the same, because the feeling is the same, just showing differently because they are different people in a different time. For me, it is the same. As we said in the beginning, I can kiss differently at twenty years old than now because I am older and it is different.

Circumstances change, the consequences are different.

Exactly.

Interview with Bausch dancer and rehearsal director Daphnis Kokkinos

ABSTRACT