In Belgium we live amongst the prime choreographers of the international contemporary dance scene. That is what people tell me. To me it is all still very new and I have the feeling I am still very much trying to find my way in this art discipline.

One of the important names that I had not even heard mentioning before she died was Pina Bausch. You might think you don't know her either, but maybe you do. Do you recognize this?

It's an extract of Hable Con Ella , the hit movie by Pedro Almodovar. She was still alive when he made that movie so she must have seen it and maybe even approved it.

Since she died I saw at least two choreographers pay homage to her. It was twice by referring to this scene of hers:

I'm not sure what the relationship is between the first part and the second part of this movie on youtube, but the second part is surely the way it was performed on scene: with a black tuxedo, showing almost only the hands and the face of the performer. So obviously she saw beauty in sign language of deaf people and did something very touching with it. The actor in this piece is called Lutz Förster and was recently in Brussels in a performance by Jérome Bel . The performance was very simple: Lutz tells the story of his life on an almost empty stage.

As he explains in this interview this performance was also made before Pina Bausch died. To me the piece was also about not being able to quit doing the one thing you love. Even though I wouldn't consider it brilliant I enjoyed the performance a lot.

Yesterday we went to see Alain Platel's Out Of Context . It is also dedicated to Pina Bausch and has a reference to the same scene. At a certain moment five people step out of the audience on stage and do the words to the music in sign language while the dancers are crawling on the stage floor.

Maybe because Out Of Context gets raving reviews everywhere I had expected more of it. Some scenes are very beautiful but others make me nervous. For instance, one thing that really puts me off is when choreographers use stupid humor to ease the audience. Making funny faces or shaking your ass may be funny in a Laurel and Hardy movie and it may comfort the audience but I consider it bad taste and almost an insult. If a choreographer tries to win me over with a stupid joke, that's usually the point where he looses me.

Another thing that bothers me about Out Of Context is the use of music. In the first couple of scenes a minimalistic soundtrack of animal noises sounded interesting and promising. In the end a selection of easy listening pop songs and one piece of classical opera music is used in key scenes of the performance. It feels like a crowd pleasing decision, not like the result of an artistic decision and the effect is that it diminishes the experience instead of adding to it.

No, for the moment I'll stick with sign language for the deaf and beautiful references to Pina Bausch' work. This one for instance is by the French cineast Philippe Decouflé, a song by Bourvil:

Philippe Decouflé cites Pina Bausch and Merce Cunningham as important influences (see for instance this text in the New York Times ). We should talk about Merce Cunningham next, but of him I know even less than of Pina Bausch. I'll keep you posted while I explore!