„Sweet Mambo“ performed again

Please do not forget…

„Sweet Mambo“ is great cinema, tender, humorous, melancholic, sometimes brutal and dramatic… a farewell –

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review by Klaus Dilger

translated by Karoline Strys

During the rehearsals for his piece, which shall later be called „Bon Voyage, Bob“, Alan Lucien Øyen had said in an interview that it was wonderful to work with the artists of Tanztheater Wuppertal because there was nothing more to prove here – as Pina Bausch had already tried out everything.

Bausch’s ideas for „Sweet Mambo“, which the sympathetic Norwegian integrated now for the revival alongside the rehearsal directors Azusa Seyama and Robert Sturm, certainly belong to this view: Except for the projections and the lighting design, the dance theater icon adopted one-to-one Peter Pabst’s stage design from the piece „Bamboo Blues“ that had been developed one year earlier as well as the collection of materials and questions that arose for Pina Bausch’s „India piece“ on the journey, in which the dancers of this current reenactment, with Naomi Brito replacing Regina Advento, could not participate.

Sweet-Mambo_Pina-Bausch©TANZweb.org_Klaus-Dilger

Sweet-Mambo_Pina-Bausch©TANZweb.org_Klaus-Dilger

It happened to be Pina Bausch’s last work ever for „her gems“, as she once said and whose names shall not be forgotten – she herself made sure of that in „Sweet Mambo“: “do not forget, my name is…“: Julie Shanahan, Julie-Anne Stanzak, Nazareth Panadero, Aida Vainieri, Helena Pikon and Regina Advento, as Naomi Brito is spelling out representatively and whose names the audience should now please remember as well.

An honor that shall not to be bestowed upon the men, who during the entire first part of the evening will be busy serving the divas. For once this term is more than justified here. Only in the second part the men will also have their solos: Michael Strecker, Andrey Berezin and Daphnis Kokkinos. It goes without saying that they played by no means less a role in the success of this piece.

Sweet-Mambo_Pina-Bausch©TANZweb.org_Klaus-Dilger

Sweet-Mambo_Pina-Bausch©TANZweb.org_Klaus-Dilger

Sweet-Mambo_Pina-Bausch©TANZweb.org_Klaus-Dilger

Sweet-Mambo_Pina-Bausch©TANZweb.org_Klaus-Dilger

Those who would like to take this as an opportunity to once again accuse the choreographer of outdated role clichés are overlooking the fact that she was already able to spell „genderfluidity“ even before this became socially required.

„Sweet Mambo“ is a strong and at the same time fragile piece as the human beings, whom Pina Bausch is always concerned with, are exactly that. The choreographer makes this clear already in the very first image when Naomi Brito comes on stage with a singing bowl, letting it vibrate until it sounds and Andrey Berezin is simply blowing away this delicate sound, just before another star enters the stage who actually has long since left it: Marion Cito, personified by her works, who once again takes the audience’s breath away with her grandiose gowns that make the dancers wing and glide.

Sweet-Mambo_Pina-Bausch©TANZweb.org_Klaus-Dilger

Sweet-Mambo_Pina-Bausch©TANZweb.org_Klaus-Dilger

Sweet-Mambo_Pina-Bausch©TANZweb.org_Klaus-Dilger

Sweet-Mambo_Pina-Bausch©TANZweb.org_Klaus-Dilger

„Sweet Mambo“ is not a family reunion either. Cracks, rifts, wounds and vulnerabilities definitely become visible here, which cannot be covered up with a cheery or „brush“ or „blush“, the more elegant version of „cheese“ when taking pictures.

Nazareth Panadero is laughing into the bag while there is still something to laugh about: „it is for later“ she croaks in her unmistakable timbre.

„Sweet Mambo“ is great cinema: tender, humorous, melancholic, at times brute and dramatic, not only as a silent film projection on the white billowing fabric panels shimmering in the wind that make up Peter Pabst’s stage design.

Take the biggest names in film you can think of and use them to cast a fictional film, then you will come close to the events on stage.

Sweet-Mambo_Pina-Bausch©TANZweb.org_Klaus-Dilger

Sweet-Mambo_Pina-Bausch©TANZweb.org_Klaus-Dilger

Sweet-Mambo_Pina-Bausch©TANZweb.org_Klaus-Dilger

Sweet-Mambo_Pina-Bausch©TANZweb.org_Klaus-Dilger

They all have been mentioned by name. Their skills, humor, elegance and beauty, their precision even in absolute authenticity makes them what they are: Idols and icons of Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater and therefore unforgettable and unique.

„Sweet Mambo“ also becomes the farewell performance of this „star ensemble“ which now had been on stage for the last time in this constellation. It is a farewell that might make you sad. But anyone who was lucky enough to witness it, just as the graduates of Folkwang Hochschule of the Institute for Contemporary Dance in the dress rehearsal, who were thanking their idols with standing ovations for their life’s work and who perhaps might follow in their footsteps, will at least have no fears about the future in this respect. Whether this will take place in Wuppertal or elsewhere, the coming years will have to show.

Sweet-Mambo_Pina-Bausch©TANZweb.org_Klaus-Dilger

Sweet-Mambo_Pina-Bausch©TANZweb.org_Klaus-Dilger

Sweet-Mambo_Pina-Bausch©TANZweb.org_Klaus-Dilger

Sweet-Mambo_Pina-Bausch©TANZweb.org_Klaus-Dilger