Review: THE RITE OF SPRING/COMMON GROUND[S], Sadler’s Wells

Sadler’s Wells advertise The Rite of Spring / common ground[s] bill as “iconic” and I'm tempted to agree. It's rare that a programme can be so satisfying - two works so different yet complimentary, both steeped in power and intention. It's a night not to be missed that's for sure.

Opening is common ground[s], a piece made and performed by Germaine Acogny and Malou Airaudo. Acogny is known as “the mother of contemporary African dance”, and Airaudo was an early member of Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal. Knowing this, it's inevitable the piece is going to have gravitas, and it does. In the blurb the duo said they didn't choreograph, the content just unfolded and found a form. And this is how it feels; an ebb and flow of individual history and joint experience solidified in movement and presence.

The two artists are arresting to watch, both holding their inner power and allowing it to radiate throughout the house. The movement has a minimal, steady feel about it, but with just enough action to keep one satisfyingly engaged. Acogny favours dynamic phrasing, Airaudo more connected flow, and in duo moments they embrace and dance together connected, all the while conveying a female aura that's both majestic and caring. 

The work has props scattered around the stage; two stools, numerous long poles and stones. All of this adds to the overall feel of ritual, and the poles in particular play a key role in defining the architecture of the space. Well used props can't be underestimated in their development of dance language - lines extended, space defined, tension made visible.

It's a beautifully personal piece, and offers what so much current work lacks: authenticity, time, space and intention. A powerful, original opener.

The interval is 30 minutes long and seems to me to be part of Pina Bausch’s The Rite of Spring. A large technical team prepare the stage with the well known peat flooring, and done openly it initiates the beginning of Bausch’s 1975 take on ritual and human behaviour.

I've seen the work a handful of times before and it continues to grow in richness and discomfort with each further sitting. Bausch communicates many aspects in her reading, but most keenly, the truly ugly side of patriarchy is what punches me in the face throughout.

Through pack mentality, Bausch gives an insight into a community where the women are objectified, hunted and one is ultimately sacrificed. As I mentioned, it's uncomfortable viewing, especially in 2024 when one considers the reality for women across the world. But perhaps the unease is also what makes the work so compelling, and allows it to reside at a different level from a lot of other iterations.

From the first notes of Stravinsky's score to the final crescendo the space is imbued with fear, initially in a quiet, omnipresent way slowly building to all out possessed bedlam.

As female dancers run through shafts of light, the classic Bausch attire of a silk slip allows the female form to do the talking; a mix of sensuality, energy and insecurity create a palpable, defined by external gaze notion of femininity.

When the males enter, their bare-chested, neanderthal presence is equally attractive and repulsive. Bausch utilises the most basic, animalistic traits of humanity to make her point: the group is stronger than the individual, stereotypes can be used as propaganda to encourage and define behaviour, and fear can be the most dangerous of emotions if whipped and cajoled in the right, or one should say wrong way. 

Bausch is already regarded as a master choreographer, so talking through why seems pointless. But what I found undeniable is the endless richness to the work. The content ranges from fine detail to broad strokes of movement, individual convulsion to group pandemonium, fear informed stillness to uncontrolled release and so on. 

The work’s structure also highlights the power of choreographic tools. Individualism pulled into militant unison from nowhere, randomness formed into tight groupings like only seen in nature, breath used to initiate and finish dynamic movement, and suspension evocative of drowning. The final point is key for me. Throughout Bausch uses the rise of suspension to communicate the fear being created within the environment, be it through gasping for air, reach as if wanting to take flight or jump that enables for momentary disconnection from the carnal fray.

Rite finishes with a sacrifice, and this manifests in a solo performed by the chosen one in Bausch’s version. The dancer I saw conveyed the experience in a subdued manner. This didn't dampen the communication, rather it made one contemplate the individual nature of fear, and how it manifests differently in all of those that experience it.

Important works continue to live when realised by new, different artists. And this collection of 38 dancers from 14 African countries are doing Bausch and her Rite absolute justice. I'm sure she's looking down, pleased the work is still being considered, but perhaps wishing her disturbing reading of humanity didn't feel more prevalent in 2024 than 49 years ago. 

The Rite of Spring / common ground[s] runs at Sadler's Wells until 10 November 

Photo credit: Maarten Vanden Abeele © Pina Bausch Foundation

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