Interview with Josephine Ann Endicott, 6/6/2023 (1/2)

I usually talk about how people came to dance, what they studied, but you have written about that extensively. There's a passage in your book where you list all of these works from Swan Lake to Firebird and so on. There's one work, and I don't know if you'll be able to remember, about Antony Tudor. Do you remember Pillar Of Fire with Anthony Tudor?

I do remember his presence very vividly, actually because with his bald head, he had a very pregnant face, very strong face. Rather big all around him. I was in the Corps de Ballet at that time, but I was very interested in his way of working, and he must have somehow also liked me because after the premiere he gave me a bottle of perfume. Maybe I smelled in the rehearsals. (laugh) Nobody else got a present, but it was a lovely, expensive bottle of perfume that he gave me. This was something very special for me. The piece Pillar Of Fire reminded me of some path I would like to take later: to do more pieces with people that work like he does, instead of just being in the Corps de Ballet of Swan Lake. Although I loved dancing Swan Lake, Giselle, the Balanchine pieces I was always learning from anybody that came to Australia in those days.

I ask that because, as we know, Pina Bausch also worked with him, took classes with him and maybe that'd have some kind of connection.

Some kind of connection, maybe it did have. But in the Australian Ballet Company, probably the most important person to me was Rudolf Nureyev.

His aura, his performance, his drive, his animal energy: maybe you can talk about some of the impressions that he left on you.

He was my kind of hero. I was one of his biggest fans. I just loved to study the way he worked. We did a film Don Quichotte. It was in an airport hangar where they used to store the airplanes. It was at the end of 1972. We were there for months and months in this hangar doing Don Quichotte. He was directing plus dancing the main part with Lucette Aldous. It was such hard work for the dancers, we would get up at 5:00 and finish who knows when. There were live chickens, a live donkey, fruits, vegetables. Even though they renewed some of the vegetables, after a longer time, everything just stunk. But I was always coming with a lot of energy and enthusiasm because I knew I was going to be there, studying this Nureyev, every part of him was special for me. How his face moved when he was doing an arabesque. How he would get angry with himself if he couldn't stay on balance. I even remember a performance in New York. It was Don Quichotte, and he takes this arabesque attitude, makes this face, that something was bothering him. Public was full. He went off stage. Something was slipping. He got some rosin and he came back and did the same thing, and then he went on. He allowed himself things that nobody else could because he was Nureyev, and I understand because he was just amazing. He was IT. He was dance, passion, beauty, love, madness. Oh, everything all in one person, and he was a worker. He was so disciplined. Yeah.

In many interviews, you have talked about your your first encounter with Pina Bausch. They were actually there with the Folkwang Tanzstudio in London just in April on the twenties of about this time in 73. It's about exactly like 50 years ago. And then You had one encounter with her, your eyes met and you talked to her. Hans Züllig was also there. When I think of things, like longing [Sehnsucht], this feeling of that loneliness, searching for connection. Were those qualities that maybe connected you in that encounter between the two of you? You're very young and she was ten years older?

I would say so. It's something that I'm trying to understand, still 50 years later, but the impact of my first meeting with her was so strong, so vital. As if she went inside me, something from her that I felt. I had been a very lonely person, especially in those beginning years, coming from the end of the world. Australia is so far away, it's not around the corner. We were a whole lot of dancers coming from far places, but Australia was pretty much the furthest.There were a lot of comparisons, like when Pina Bausch left Germany to go to America, she could hardly speak English. She talks about waving goodbye to her parents. It's painful when you're only 17, 18. When I came to London, I was 22, I think. I was a young, naive girl. I was always falling in love with the male dancers in Australia, they were mostly homosexual, or confused. My greatest love was dance, but I was in the Australian Ballet Company. I was told, "You're such a talented person, Jo, but your face is too round." I was young, my body was nice. My proportions and everything were good, but it did not belong to this aesthatic of a ballet dancer. Other dancers were to short from here to here (neck), their hands too small, they had a swayed back, their bottom... You know, there is no perfect body.

But from Pina, I just felt her love for me, for something that she saw. She liked it. "Yes. I want you. I love you" kind of thing. And I was taken. She was so beautiful in those days for me, remained beautiful. I was very Catholic, religious, and before being accepted into the Australian Ballet School, I had thoughts of being a nun. The beauty of Pina was something so pure for me. My work, our work was important, my religion was important, but this meeting of Pina just took in everything that I was looking for when I was that young. At that time, I was struggling in England. I was taking dance classes, struggling with my savings, so I started to work at Covent Garden. Pina Bausch came to a performance in a black velvet dress, and I ushered her to her place. I already felt the importance of this person walking down and Jo bringing her to her seat with Hans Züllig. She had no makeup, I was always impressed with her hands and the big wide steps she took, her big feet, the way she smoked. Maybe, I've always liked observing people. I have maybe good eyes. I don't know, but this person, Pina Bausch, was exquisit for me. She asked me to come to Wuppertal. I had no idea where this was in the world. I couldn't speak a word of German, but I said yes. I wasn't really looking for a job, but when she asked me, I couldn't say no. Why would you say no? And I'm glad I didn't say no.

In the first season, one of the very first things that Pina Bausch did was the title role in Yvonne, Prinzessin von Burgund . Did you see that?

No, I didn't see it, but I saw photos of it. I actually think, that the dress she wore in that piece is either the same dress that I wore in The Seven Deadly Sins or very similar. That chiffon dress. When I see the pictures of Pina in that dress, I think, "Oh, that's my dress from The Seven Deadly Sins. "
In the beginning, we also had those side projects like with Peter Kowald. I did see Pina Bausch doing these improvizations to the music of Peter Kowald, and it was (dances) really fascinating. So, I did see her performing. Also, she did perform in Fritz, one of our first pieces in 1973, she was just the grandmother sitting on that chair.

Was improvization something that you were comfortable with as a ballet dancer. In London did you have contact with that way of dancing?

Not really. It was with Pina that we continued to go this way of improvising and questions and answers. In those days, it was mostly Pina Bausch that did the improvising. We did sometimes little choreographies, and I did something a bit classical, a bit crazy, but leave the choreographing to Pina.

When the company started it was the ballet of the opera. So there were all the operas that had to be done, and there was one piece that Pina Bausch choreographed, a reviews called Zwei Krawatten. Do you recall how did she work with it, what did you do in that piece?

Pina Bausch was not so mad about having this rule. When you're working in the opera house in those days you had to do the operas. For Pina Bausch it was a disturbing thing in the contract, because she wanted her dancers, all the time, to do her pieces. But it was our duty to do so many operas, the ballet had to take part in them. At that time, we weren't even called Tanztheater. We weren't dancing a lot with Pina, if you weren't one of her favorites, you had to do a lot of sitting down, and watch the others dancing. So, you were quite happy to be in one of these operas, because at least we were dancing in Fledermaus, Zigeunerbaron, André Chénier. The public liked opera in Wuppertal, they would clap for that, but when we came out with Fritz people were just leaving and throwing tomatoes or whatever. So it was nice working with Hans Pop, he took this heavy duty from Pina, so that she could work on other things. But Zwei Krawatten was a nice work, Pina did the choreography. We had these hats on, these costumes from Charleston time. I remember being drunk, hanging in a train. We already had these kind of movements (shows abandonment). These kind of movements that stayed in her pieces, piece after piece. So, whenever we did anything with her, the movements were in a continuation. If we see things like the Mahler from 1975 [Adagio – Five Songs by Gustav Mahler], also The Second Spring, it's the same movements that are in Café Müller, in Arien, in Orpheus und Eurydike. It's always been like a continuation.

As you mentioned Adagio – Five Songs by Gustav Mahler, it's also present there, this real people, real life situations coming to the stage, combined with this marvelous Mahler music. There's some beautiful moments with the four of you: Dominique Mercy, Malou Airaudo and Marlis Alt and you doing these relationships between you.

Pina Bausch was very into relationships and personal problems. Good things, dark things, light things, but in this piece the relationship between us is very clear: we were friends. Marlis, Dominique, me and ...

This was a three piece evening, usual in the world of ballet, three pieces in one evening. The other piece from Pina Bausch was I'll Do You In….

Frightening.

Why was it frightening?

Well, I was sitting on a chair, like this on my own in a fur coat. I had ugly shoes on, with a heel that high, not like the stilettos that the women wear in Tanztheater that are that high. I had a tight skirt. I was there alone with all my fears of what people are going to say: fat face, all those things. She gave me the freedom to wait till all the public were just quiet and sitting. So, I was there. The hair was like in an old fashioned German style, and I had to speak this text: "Ich bin eine anständige Frau." At that time nobody could really tell me, what this word anständige really means. It means you are a respectable woman, but it actually means you're not a respectable woman. I had this text and I didn't know. She didn't tell me how to do that. I just had to trust myself: "Wait Jo, till everybody's quiet and then say 'Ich bin eine anständige Frau, und Sie? Sie würden ja lachen. Ich bin wirklich eine ...'" and then I went into singing, and if anybody in the world can't sing, it's me. But she had the text all kind of broken up for me. Later I had to sing a very well known German song called Egon. I was allowed to be drunk while I'm singing it, so that's why I got away with not being able to sing. I would be falling off the chair. We were finding our way together.She put a lot of pressure, but also a lot of trust in me, and in the other dancers as well, because they all in this evening had a song. Der Onkel Doktor hat gesagt ich darf nicht küssen oh, lovely little songs. I love them all, and very well known to German public in those days. Perhaps, because Pina was brought up in this restaurant, she heard these songs playing when she was a child. But, I love those pieces, I love the chance to go crazy, or just to be myself, actually. Because it's okay to have this power, the eye contact with the public, to know when you can do these kind of things. I think it's something very special, a quality that not everybody has. I like also, in the second part of The Seven Deadly Sins, when I come back, exhausted from being Anna. I put a wig on, makeup, eyelashes, beauty spots, lipstick in the intermission and come out as a completely different figure. Then, I have to come downstage to the public and speak with them. If you ask: "Pina, can you give me a text? Because I'm so tired after Anna that sometimes the words won't come?" "Oh Jo, everything you say is wonderful. You'll be fine." I'd come back on stage and I'd be going downstage (shows), then it is just happening, in the moment. I always said something different, not knowing what I'm saying, because it always kept it alive for me and made it not boring. I hate to be bored.

That is truly what makes live theater special, I suppose. This communication directly with the public. The sets in I'll Do You In… are quite unique. Can you remember it? Can you maybe describe it for us?

I'll Do You In… That's with the tables. Yeah. Well, there were a lot of tables, that's all it was. We had these street clothes on in those days. We also didn't wear so much those elegant dresses, the evening dresses. We were just a bunch of people who had something to say and who wanted to go with Pina Bausch on her vision. But it wasn't the vision of all of the people that she first engaged in the company, because what many of them wanted to do was dance. But what is dance anyway? So, in those first maybe seven years, there was so much coming and going of dancers. After the first year, there were already people leaving, after the second year they had enough, same in the third year. So this stabilization of the company had not taken place yet until maybe seven years later. So, a lot of people missed out on this very revolutionary beginning times, when the public would just leave, slam the doors. It was hard, but we had to be courageous. Pina Bausch was the number one courageous person, never giving up. It's something we learned together, and the ones that weren't courageous enough or wanted something else, they went. Actually, I also was one of the ones that wanted to leave in the beginning, but whenever I went to speak with her, she would say: "But I love you or I need you." I just couldn't do it. I could not leave her. I only left her when I was truly exhausted, but it was only to recover and then come back. Never in my life I would think I'd stay there for 50 years. Never. 50 years, well, that's a lifetime!

It's also a privilege to work in an environment that has this longevity, where one can also grow with it, in it, and pass on, or be this legacy as well.

It was a big privilege. It's a privilege to be able to sit here in this Lichtburg, the wallpaper is falling down, these old lamps. Nothing changed much down here: the hanging cables all around, the wall that was never allowed to be covered. There was some money years ago and they were allowed to fix up everything up there: new showers, some fitness equipment. Pina was still alive, but never anybody was allowed to fix anything down here, because Pina wanted it to stay like it is, and it's great. There's not another studio, in the world like this. The heating never works, I hate that heating. The lights are so terrible, actually. You're always hiding behind the mirrors because the lights were killing your eyes. Pina Bausch always sat there and didn't have the lights. We sat there, the worst lights come from there, so the dancers had the lights on them. Pina was there with her table, that's her table... Yeah. This is full of memories.

Let's move to the third season with the "Stravinsky evening" and then Iphigenie auf Tauris. The Stravinsky evening has three pieces. They have been revived in a project with the Foundation, Folkwang University and The Juilliard School, and as we speak now, we are reviving The Second Spring. Would you talk about The Second Spring?

The Second Spring – maybe we should call "The Fifth Spring" by now – it's a piece with music from Stravinsky. I personally love this little cameo piece, that is only 22 minutes long. I remember very well the people that created it with Pina Bausch, like Vivienne Newport – we were good friends in those days. Everything she does, like the eyes, how she counts, how she walks, is so very much like her, Vivienne. I also see Jan Minařík in this tango: so stupid, but so genius. Jan with all his qualities, and his acting abilities. I was also dancing the tango, really crazy, with my legs up here. Oh, pure madness. In the very first creation, Colleen Finneran played this little girl, with this scream and all of this kind of things (shows). John Giffin, Jan Minařík – he passed away, Marlis Alt was the lady in white. It was a very beautiful experience. Now, I have been awarded the Deutscher Tanzpreis - the German Dance Prize 2023 with my colleagues Dominique Mercy, Lutz Förster and Malou Airaudo. We have to plan an evening for the celebration, so we are now working on The Second Spring as part of the presentation. It's not easy to replace these people, we had our first rehearsal yesterday. It's very detailed, but I'm happy to do it. Still, everything is more work than one would expect: the music's so very fast. I won't be happy if it's not how it should be. Yesterday was our first day, so it's still a work-in-progress. The "Stravinsky evening" also included The Rite of Spring and "Cantata".

In Orpheus und Eurydike there were two casts creating along with Pina Bausch. Two couples, do you remember that? Can you tell us about how the process was with Pina? Showing movement, or working with the five of you: Malou Airaudo and Dominique Mercy, you and Ed Kortlandt and Pina Bausch?

We were working all together, but because we were a second cast – Ed Kortlandt and I, it was mostly Pina working with Malou and Dominique and we were learning the same movements. Still, there's a lot of Malou in there, especially in the the fourth act. In the third act, there's a lot of classical things (shows), that I found much easier than, I think, Malou did. I liked all this kind of feeling the music (shows), the softness, the beauty, taking the air. The movements were very Pina Bausch, but they also had a lot of classical things in there. In the fourth act it's more dramatic, I think, more based on Malou and Dominique and their feelings. I have another energy as a dancer than Malou, so I was allowed to be a bit of a different Eurydike than Malou was, the same way as Ed Kortladt was allowed to be a bit of a different Orpheus than Dominique was. Still, in those days, I had a bit of a problem, because I was feeling to be some kilos too fat, not a lot. But in the third act, we have just this body, a kind of tricot with a long skirt. I think that when you see a person dancing, and they make it believable, then it doesn't matter how the kilos are. If you are 100% with the music, and the music is taking where you have to go, it doesn't matter. Again, sometimes you have days when you think: 'Oh my God, I better not eat this piece of cake today or have that block of chocolate.' But for Pina, it was never a problem. And for a fact, Malou and Dominique were so wonderful in this act that I felt, maybe, I was not as strong as they were.

Talking about Pina's movements, can you talk about what you saw there and how this movement came to be?

As a dancer every single part of your body plays some kind of role, whether it's the fingers, the fingertips, the toes. Like this leg position of Pina – which I didn't know as a classical dancer – the foot rests here and then the leg has this beautiful line (shows). This kind of things like this sitting in the hip, it's so beautiful. Or this kind of arms, it's not just the arms that take you, it's filled with breath and an arch of the neck. As I had been a classical dancer and understood this pose to pose, and épaulement, I see something I miss it a lot in dancers today. Pina's work is connected to classical, it's in there, but before you even start anything, you go up with the breath, then the elbow, then the hand: it's the unfolding. As you reach the top, and you can't go anymore, then you go down (shows) and then the back brings you up. It's all about unfolding. This was all new to me. Hands like this (shows), picking up the chest bone, was something I had to learn already for Iphigenie auf Tauris, because I was one of the priestesses. When we would come out, it was all on top here, and pull, and down (shows). If I just do it like this (shows) without the pull, without the lift up, without the head and the back here in a line, it's not enough for me. Or if there's an accent and you go here (shows), you have to get there (shows accent) and then these arms come down and this goes up, you're going through the air and it's all very detailed. It's this part first ... It's a whole world of its own. But if you had the chance, and you had the eyes, and you took the time to watch Pina Bausch, in front of you do it, showing you these movements, [you'd learn it]. In those days she did show the choreography. So, it was always a bit like: (nonverbal) 'Uh huh, oh, I wish I could do it like her. Oh, yeah.' Then, when you got it, you knew you had it. She had her poker face, but you knew: 'Okay, she's happy with you, Jo.' I think, because I had this wonderful classical training, plus my good eyes, and my Irish mother that I was able to [pick it up]. Whenever I'm teaching now, I still have the picture of Pina Bausch in front of me showing the movements, also in "Sacre".

What kind of choreographer was Pina as far as creating movement? Was she a person who would see something and say, 'Oh, this is nice for you, you can do it like this.' Because she's the choreographer, she can always come with something else, or was she already precise when she first created?

When she first created was very precise. She was very technical. You had to try to achieve: that foot, that line. For example, the circle in "Sacre", don't ask me how many times we had to rehearse until it sat, until everything was perfect. She was a perfectionist. Still, every dancer has her own limits. When you know the limits of your dancers – and she did know ours – then you can say: 'yes, I'm happy with that.' But, if she knew that you could go further, then she was not happy, and neither were you, until you had gone further, and gone to your limits. Like, reaching here (shows), it's not here. It's here! I had a problem when I was doing the solo in "Sacre" because of my limits. Because I was a good classical dancer my limits were different. So, I had to learn to work within my limits. (shows) When you are watching somebody moving, you can feel, with them, their limits. By now, I am almost as bad as she was: I'm not happy if I'm not getting their limits, either. You have to work like this in "Sacre", because if you don't go to the limits, no one is going to believe you. Believe that at the end you are ready to die. That you fall and you are actually dead. Pina Bausch and movements? There are funny movements that she has in ... "Gebirge" [On the Mountain a Cry Was Heard]: like things like this (shows). You'd never do things like this in classical ballet. I mean it was so nice to go down here, (shows) up here, and then to do things like this. I love this movement: then just hold your hair, then go down and fall on the ground. Very bad for your back. But if you do it, and you go for it, then you don't get hurt either. I was really lucky that I was very seldom injured. Never injured, just when I was 60 I did have a hip operation, which is normal for dancers. Still, I just kept working. Because when you love what you do, I believe you don't get sick. I knew I had to be there for Pina and I couldn't get sick, especially when I was an assistant. Because if you're sick, who's going to take over? Of course, there are other assistants, depending on what piece you're involved in.

It seems to me that she always tried to feature the people that she liked. Like in the Stravinsky evening, starting with "Cantata" and you had this moment in it.

Yes, I know. I felt like I was in the church in "Cantata". There was something with the singing, the choir, the movements. When you just go on the table with your hands. I love all those "nothing things". The "nothing things" in Pina's pieces are very special to me. When it looks like there is nothing happening, still there's so much happening because of the atmosphere or something that's left in the room.

There's something liturgical about "Cantata", the title already ...

Actually, the piece is called Wind From West.

Yes, it's called Wind From West. We call it "Cantata" because that's the title of the music, we tend to use these easier to remember short titles. Is there something religious about it?

For me, yes. I always felt very holy in that piece. I had this little dress on. I began sitting on the floor, in this see-through lime-green dress. It was 1976, so I still had the fat face, so I looked like this big doll. The public saw three rooms divided by gauze. The group run on to the stage and do these hand movements, very simple things (shows). It's so very simple, so very full of beauty. There's a mother figure in the piece holding a bird, like she's the daughter, and I'm the young girl, who falls in love. The movements were also very nice: I go through the door, then you do a turn, and you go down from here (shows). And suddenly, you go straight to the floor, and then you just come up. Now, I'm coming back to the movements here (shows). Then there's just this little eye movement. It looks like nothing (shows), but there is something happening inside you that makes you do it. She was so instinctively musical. I loved what she did to every music. If I had never worked with Pina Bausch, I would never had the chance to know these musics, all the musics in all the different pieces.

One of her greatest talents was her musicality. Maybe we felt, somehow, the same thing with music like in the Brecht-Weill evening. The things that she would do to that music were just perfect for me as well. When we first did it, I didn't understand text so well. The Brecht text was very German, but didn't matter for me, because the music was so powerful. I knew enough of the story to portray the person that I was playing. When I was 58, doing the same part – the role of Anna, I understood the text better. So, because I understood not only the music, but text as well, I might have even been more bitter, when I danced it with 58 than I was when I was 27. Who knows?

Even as you show this movement, and the rhythmic variation she created goes parallel to the music so well ...

Everything that she does with music is so amazing. For someone who didn't learn piano, or notes, her understanding of every kind of music – pop, modern, fado, bandoneon – is just amazing. She was lucky to have people like Matthias Burkhardt and Andreas Eisenschneider. I can't remember what year she started the co-productions in different lands, but she was always very interested in the musics and the cultures, of other nationalities, other lands. She brought this music back for her pieces. What a great idea! She even understood their music. When I see a piece like Orpheus und Eurydike, what she did musically it's so beautiful. Also the costumes by Rolf Borzik – these sheer, see-through black dresses are the most beautiful dresses. I would wear one now, if I had somewhere to go with a see-through dress with a beautiful cut – you felt beautiful in those costumes. This group of dancers in these black dresses, along with the music so full of grief and sadness, is like a wave of tears flowing (shows). If you do the movements properly: it's all about cutting through the air, lifting up! I'm a great fan of Pina's movements.

When you talk about the costumes together with the music, the movements, there's an arch between femininity, sensuality, beauty, sadness.

It's all there! When you can wear these kind of costumes instead of a tutu – I mean, I loved wearing a tutu, the pink tights, the pointe shoes, the makeup, the hairs – here, you just feel it belongs together. It's all one. The whole piece, the costumes, the set, the dead tree on the stage, this glass mirror, the small box, the grave at the back, this high oversize wooden chair, it's all full of beauty. All the things that are happening in all corners of the stage, that I know now, when I was dancing it, I was only a dancer. But, when you are teaching these things – I've been teaching "Orpheus" for quite a lot of years now – as a director, you have to know everything. Even today, after I have taught it five or six times, there are still things to discover: what does the raven mean, or the oversize loaves of bread, or the unreachable apple at the back. All these things that Rolf Borzik and Pina Bausch, as partners, with great influence on each other, put in there. They were always talking to each other in the studio, at home. They never stopped talking. He never stopped drawing or caring for her. They were a great couple. Also, it was so wonderful that Peter Pabst stayed so long, and so loyal to her. Still those years were different than they were later.

In this season, we have The Seven Deadly Sins and "Songs". You play "Anna" with your sister "Anna", one and two. How was the process? Did she start with only the soloists, and worked with the group?

The group in any of the pieces is always very, very important. When you are a group dancer, you don't really think you're an important person because you're in the group. But the group is often holding the piece up, actually. I see this more now, since I'm teaching, how important the group is. And I would like to say all the dancers that were in the group before – many years ago in 1973, and thought, they were only in the group and not important – how important they were. Because they really were, but perhaps they were not thanked enough. Pina Bausch was always in stress. And in those days, maybe we didn't feel so much thanks from her. Yeah, but that's another story. If I remember rightly, I think we started first just with the singer and me – the "Anna" people. We tried to find the beginning. I remember things not working. We had a lot of old suitcases. I think she had an ad in the paper: she's looking for suitcases, old suitcases. Then we had millions of suitcases, and they did stay in the piece, maybe not all of them. We worked in the choreography, and in the midst of the choreography she got stuck with how to go on. I was getting really furious. You know, we were trying this and trying that, and nothing was working. I got so furious that – just from me and my feeling – I went around and I started throwing down the chairs, throwing down anything that was in the room and. That was great! Because that's what she needed, but this feeling had to come from me and not from her. And so it stayed in the choreography. The group: sometimes I wished I had been in that group, because I loved all these women doing all these things. (shows) And all of this. The group was always telling me where I had to go. When I was dancing "Anna" I used to hate them: they would pull my hair and drag me over here, drag me over there. And I was running – if there's something I hate doing onstage, it is running! From that end of the stage to there, then there's a girl pointing: "No, go over there." Another one pointing. It was so exhausting to do this "Anna" thing. Not only physically, but so you are so raped by those men. You are turned into something that you never imagined. I start in the sun, you've got this ray of light. I would just think I'm a lazy young person, naive, and this is my sun in Australia. Before each performance I would draw a sun like a child. I cannot draw. But like a child, I can make a really lovely sun. A circle, two eyes, a stroke for the nose, a smiley for the mouth and the rays. But me being so stupid, I had it had to always be my sun. So, for half an hour before the people entering, I always drew the sun, placed my matches, the cigarette. And nobody was allowed to cross the stage, or step on my matches or my cigarette, otherwise I would not have my cigarettes for the performance.

I'm not a smoker, so Pina used that. Okay, I'm in the sun, I'm smiling, I'm young, I'm beautiful, but I don't know it. Then, you get the cigarette, because she wants to smoke, and you try, light it up and it's like (coughs - disgusting). Pina needed this not being able to smoke. Because of all the running, you have this dreadful taste in your throat – I hate cigarettes – until the end of the show when you can have a drink, to take off this taste of nicotine. Still, the hardest part of the whole evening, was standing there at the end, after you have been through all those sins: pride, anger, [greed], lust, envy, gluttony, sloth – all of them. Oh, there is that part where you get measured. Hans pop used to do the measuring: open my leg, measure your leg here, from here to here (shows). And then at the end here would go like this (shows, pulling the tape). It didn't hurt, but it was not really very nice. Then, he puts his dirty hands on my hips (shows) then he does all of this (pushing hips from one side to the other). Oh, how I hated it! I can go very far to one side, and he has to be the one that pushes your hips to the other side. Oh, my God! There were also all these other men, and then at the end you stand there, the sun is all washed out. There's nothing left. The group push you to stand opposite the singer, and she's my sister, but sometimes she became Pina for me – always making me go further and further. We have to get the money for the house, for the theater ... making me go on and on. Then, she sings this beautiful music: "Now we've got our house in Louisiana, now we go back" and so on. We've achieved everything, "Nicht wahr, Anna? Is it not true, Anna? Then there's this wave of music, and you're not allowed to say the text until a certain moment. You have to stand there, fighting back the tears. And you have to say, full of hate and exhaustion: "Yes, Anna!" I have to say this, after all of what's happened to you. And it's not over yet, because there's still a little bit of music left, you just stand there and she's looking at you. And you're dying inside, you've used up your beauty and everything. Then there's the applause after, and then you don't really feel like taking a bow. It's not a nice piece. After the applause, and then you have to go off quickly, change the clothes, put on a wig and become the leader of the pack, like the Puffmutter [Brothel Madam]. But all you actually want to do, is to jump out of the window, or to have a shower to get all these ugly men hands off you. But I think in the end, it was good that I had to make that change in the break, to get over all of that. That what I did in "Todsünde"[The Seven Deadly Sins], it's not easy. It is really not easy to play that figure. Still, the music was always taking me there. You do not take a step because it is set, you take a step because a feeling makes you go there. I learned so much in this piece, and Pina Bausch was very nice because she understood. Once we knew, we had "Todsünde"[The Seven Deadly Sins] figured out, I told Pina: "Look, I cannot do every rehearsal 100%. I know I can do it. You can trust me." She knew that, we never spoke about trust. "Please, if I'm not feeling like doing 100%, it is because I need to save the real feelings for the performance, or for the next performance. You know, my feelings are precious. They're real. I can't fake anything up there." If I fake it, she won't believe it, and it makes it more difficult to play.

The Seven Deadly Sins is always done with live music. So, you have the singers and you have the orchestra. Do you have remembrances of of those persons, artists, musicians?

We all remember, when we speak of the songs, Mechthild Grossmann, who was just so incredible in her "Surabaya Johnny", or with the whip in "Song von Mandalay". It was her first piece with us, working with it with Pina Bausch. Pina was so fixated on this girl. She was so beautiful with this hair, the lovely legs, the voice, the way she spoke. She spoke not like an actress, she sang not like a singer – her singing was like a dance with the music. She fascinated me. I loved to watch from the wings: when she did "Surabaya Johnny" with the lipstick, and this feeling of loss – what a pig he was: "Du bist ein Schuft, Johnny. Du hast mich betrogen.", the way that Pina Bausch worked these numbers with all of the singers – I think there were three women. In the beginning was Karin Rasenack, the wife of the General Director Hanno Lunin, then Mechthild Grossmann, and the dolls-lady originally sang by Ann Höling, who also sang "Anna" in "Todsünde"[The Seven Deadly Sins], later we had lots of different actresses. Erich Leukert, who was the man in Fürchtet Euch nicht [Don't Be Afraid] which is the title to the second part, we call "Songs". There are lots of crazy things going on there: all the men coming dressed as women in high heel shoes, wigs. So kitsch, so ugly that it's so great: with makeup, bras, corsets. It's a fantastic evening. This is a really big step that Pina Bausch took into another direction. And, the orchestra is placed behind. – It was not the first time we played with orchestra. Iphigenie auf Tauris was already with orchestra. – So, a nice little orchestra at the back. Wonderful evening, lots of colors, madness. Madness. Pure: every dancer loves to dance this piece, I think.

The sets were also something special.

The stage! Oh God, it was like a real street, made after a street in Wuppertal somewhere. There was the gutter, the pavement, a step down [the kerb] and there were dirt holes. From year to year, every time you danced on that floor, it got worse and worse. Like there were sections, that if you knew you were going to dance on that part of the stage, I would say to any colleague: "Avoid going there. You'll break your foot." It was a real challenge. I was really crazy in those younger days. Pina put me in many numbers in the second part, so that I was getting more and more exhausted, still I really liked to be in the these things. Later I took myself out of some things. Oh, in the second half there is this Tanten [Aunts] thing. Oh my! I love this little duet. Then there's these four girls that come out in the fur coats. They're screaming and singing – I had to win. We all lie on the floor in our fur coats. I have the biggest fur coat, but I have the tiniest underwear. Another girl comes, she has straps, stockings and a nice corset – she looks nice, but she has only a fox around her shoulders. One more girl comes looking more beautiful than I did, but she has only little bits of fur. She places them on the floor, and then we all lie down. Then that one starts to sing, then another one answers, the other one sings, and we sort of fight it each other. Then we go (sings): Ha ha, ha ha, ha ha, ha ha, haaa! The one that can sing and scream the longest, wins. One of my best qualities is that I can scream forever. So, I always won the screaming. After the big scream, you lie back down, and then comes the next verse. The next verse is the same, but the last screaming is even longer. Then you get up, and you throw the coat (shows) and then you go off. I pause, I think to look back, and I know I really won. We always got lots of applause for this. One day I screamed so long, that when I lay down, I felt dizzy. Pina just let you do all these things, because it was fun, it was great fun. She loved it. Later, I did less and less in it. I did dance "Songs", but not "Anna", when we revived it in 2018 here in Wuppertal. I did the beginning, the "aunts" and this screaming bit, and I always wore my original dresses. The same dresses that I wore in 1975 when we first did "Todsünde"[The Seven Deadly Sins] and "Songs", I still wore them without anything having to be adjusted, same dresses and same shoes. When I taught my role of "Anna" to Stephanie Troyak, I gave her all my old clothes, even the underpants and the bra. We had a second cast with Tsai-Chin Yu, and she was able to inherit my shoes. I love to work in all my old things, they have so many memories, so much sweat and things in there.

Two things about this revival. One is about Stephanie Troyak: your coaching brought her to be singled out as one of the best performance of the year. On in the segue of that, I would like to talk about preparation, rituals, the importance of doing things for yourself, that hour, the make up. How did you prepare for this performances? Are you the kind of dancer that goes on the stage and walks around and in your mind you do the steps or you're the quiet person that sits there and concentrates?

It starts from the moment you get up. You know, that in that evening you are doing something special. So, depending what piece it is, you have to take care of your energy. So, don't do too much in the morning. Don't go shopping. I don't eat a lot of meat now, I could call myself a vegetarian, but if I know that I have to do something so physically exhausting, I might, on that day, just eat a piece of steak. Because I think I need the animal in me, or the animal in the meat. It's always a very precious, holy kind of thing. When I come in, I avoid also talking. I actually, am very much to myself, all very concentrated. Maybe the night before, I've just gone through everything in my head. My place in the dressing room always has to be very tidy. I've always done my make up for "Anna" myself, but for "Songs", they did it, because I didn't have enough time. But the most important thing in the very last 5 minutes, once I go another time to the toilet. Pina would be always lurking around in the hallway near the dressing room. So the last thing you do once you have your dress on, you go to her and you collect the "toi toi toi" [break-a-leg] kiss, and a little whisper in the ear: "You will be wonderful." or "I love you."

That was all I really needed, and knowing that she's out front, watching was always the most important person in the public for me. I don't know if I was dancing for her, for myself, or for the public. But definitely, knowing she was there was a big help to believe in myself. That's why I always made it different each performance, even in "Todsünde"[The Seven Deadly Sins]. There are moments, that if you don't do something well enough there, there's a chance to bring it up to the point somewhere else. You have to bring it to that point. You can always feel it, and you know, she's feeling it with you. But very seldom, did we need words after a performance: you knew yourself, or you might have just passed her somewhere, and you knew she was happy with you. I think you know it yourself, when you've done a good performance. And maybe, I always said a little prayer or two, or thought about my mother, who I have to thank because she was the one who brought me to dance. When I was a child, I used to cry a lot. She took me to a lot of sports and things, but I kept crying. I don't know, I had two brothers. They had their sports and I was in the middle. When my parents separated, there was not a lot of happiness at home, but some happiness as well. It was my mother who first took me to ballet, she had to drive me there. We didn't have a lot of money, my father was against it, because it cost money. But the minute I went in there, and the teachers asked me to stand in first position, and do this (shows - port de bras), she knew I felt this was mine, now I had something. The crying stopped. Oh, I don't know why? My mother had three Irish sisters and they all were born with this Irish music, they all wanted to dance, but they never made it to the stage. So, I got of all of this passed to me as a child. I never really wanted to be a dancer, not really: leave home, sacrifice, not having this. It's all about sacrifice. It's not an easy life being a dancer. It's not like after a performance, a chauffeur comes, you get flowers. Truth is, you take the Schwebebahn [monorail in Wuppertal] home, you get the bus, or you drive to Düsseldorf, and your child is there crying, or sleeping. But, it's okay. I don't mind. I'm a hard worker, I like what I do. But if you have no passion for what you do, then you might as well not even start. Yeah.

The next season we have two pieces, again about abuse.

"Bluebeard" and Komm tanz mit mir [Come Dance With Me]. Another monster piece. Monster.

Let's just start with "Bluebeard". Season of 1976/77, in that season. "Bluebeard" with the music from Béla Bartók that became something else.

With the Tonband [Reel to reel tape player]. That's not the title either: "Bluebeard". Blaubart. Beim Anhören einer Tonbandaufnahme von Béla Bartóks Oper »Herzog Blaubarts Burg« [Bluebeard. While Listening to a Tape Recording of Béla Bartók's Opera "Duke Bluebeard's Castle"] We'll call it "Bluebeard". This was the time when there was a lot of misunderstandings in the company. I think it was a kind of crisis with Pina and a many of the group dancers. I don't know the story behind it, but "Bluebeard" is very brutal. She started already the question and answer system, but the questions, she needed to have answered for the themes in "Bluebeard", were very intimate. She was asking private things, too intimate things, and even I, took a step back from her. I didn't want to answer some of these questions that I thought she didn't need to know. So, I sometimes just sat there like this (silent) – "I'm not answering that, Pina". It's a genius piece. If you would just let the music run-through as Bartók wrote it, I would say I love it. But Pina had this tape recorder that Jan Minařík played – he was playing the role of Bluebeard, and Marlis Alt was the Judith, later Beatrice Libonati, Hiltrud Blanck, Colleen Finneran-Meessmann, and Malou Airaudo played it, I think. He kept winding back sections of it, and then running to his tape recorder again, pressing the button, continue, running back and again the same. So, that's okay if you do it for maybe for 5 minutes, but it went throughout the whole piece. There are opera singing voices in that piece, so it twisted everything. It twisted it once, twisted it twice, three, four, five, six times. It was like being in a madhouse. If you do something like this (shows) to somebody, it's enough to do it maybe once, and scream and go to the floor, but repeating through the whole "Bluebeard", was like twisting something in your soul. Then repeating all the pictures at the end, bringing back at the same time the feelings back, the cushion on the wall, the hair, the leaves, the line, the laughing... It was an exhausting piece. The scene where Jan Minařík pulls Marlis Alt from the leg, and she goes back to the wall, he goes back and pulls the leg and she goes back again, and then he picks her up and swings her around and runs with the tape machine and puts his head against her stomach. Afterwards, in the shower, you'd see Marlis Alt, or Ruth Amarante or the others, with bruises and sore back. For me it was just one too many, you've gone a bit over. Still, I can't really say that, because it's really a great piece. But dancing it, running against the wall – not marking it, but really bashing yourself against the wall – was exhausting. Then again, you have these three women: Jan Minařík picks you up with this sheet (shows) and swings you around, then he drops you on a chair. That's the first one. He does the same with the second one, and a third one piled on top of each other. It's heavy, you know, it hurts, but we don't complain. We never complained to Pina Bausch. So you just keep going and going. But, that piece was really hard, and the dancers weren't happy. When you would pass her office, you actually saw Pina crying because she was in a difficult situation. Have you ever seen Pina crying? Nobody likes to see Pina crying, or even worse, hurt Pina with some stupid words, that you might have said because you were so tired. This piece was extreme, very physically and mentally extreme. Exhausting, but what comes out is something great. I wasn't involved with the restaging of it. Here again, the group in "Bluebeard" is so important!

Again, as music theater, the group captures this atmosphere.

The hairs in my arm are standing up. The beginning, with this dark music (sings), is creepy, haunting. Once, we had performances in Paris, in the Théâtre de la Ville, some months later, I received a letter at home from someone I didn't know, somebody who had watched "Bluebeard" in Paris. He wrote that he was a suicide candidate, and watching "Bluebeard" saved his life. After seeing it, he felt cured of something. I don't know. But, you know, there are many people out there – not just about "Bluebeard"*, but with the work of Pina Bausch – that really appreciate these wonderful things that happen on the stage, and they identify themselves with it. The work is for everybody, because we are all humans, and what we are giving as human beings is getting over the edge of this stage. It's getting where it needs to go, and that's what's so wonderful also about our work. This is why we should keep trying to do it at a level where it should be, not anything below.

Komm tanz mit mir [Come Dance With Me] is also very similar. It's a toxic relationship, but in a very different visual environment. It is light, it is white. Maybe you can describe both the sets, what you do, and the sounds and songs?

Beautiful. There she had the group and myself singing old german sad folk songs. Normally, if you would ask singers to come and sing, they would have to be standing to sing or sitting, but with the dancers in this new "Pina World", she had singers singing on the shoulders of a man like lying across here (shows), coming in, going out, singing (sings): "Ich armes Mädlein Oh. Oh." Beautiful songs. Many images: she had a man pulling a dead tree, and a girl is in the tree and she had her song. He's just pulling her slowly, in this little street dress, so beautiful. Or two man are holding hands and another girl is sitting over their joined hands, and she's just waving and singing another folk song. Or another girl chopping off the men's [head] – the men in this piece have a coat – like you said, toxic, macho men. It's a love story between myself and actor – later, an ex-dancer did this part. The men are in black boots, black woolen trousers, white shirt, black long winter coat, and they all have a felt black hat. The stage design is white, like an icy, slippery dip, like on an ice mountain. At the top of the stage, a huge tree is hanging in the fly system, waiting. Towards the end, when there's nothing to be saved for the couple, the tree crashes down onto the stage, and rolls forward almost into the public. It's so very poetic. The themes in there are so very real to what happens to couples these days. We did it for the first time in 1977, and the last time was in Japan, when I was 59 (June 2010). Pina had already passed away. I've been married for 43 years, so I know how it is to be in a relationship. So, the older I got the more I could put into the piece, the more I grew into the piece. With these kind of pieces, as you develop yourself privately, you could always add your experience into the pieces. Some pieces got even stronger the older they got. They have a life of their own, especially Come Dance With Me.

Which is quite amazing. Thinking that Pina was 37, maybe 36, when she created the piece.

Yeah. She was 36 and I was ten years younger. We both knew a lot about life and relationships. We restaged it also in other years when she was still alive, and she could also feel the further possibilities of it. But, I do remember, as we were rehearsing it here in 2007. She was having trouble with one of her new pieces. I had been engaged in 2007, I came back in a contract as a dancer, assistant, for archives, teacher, and so on. I had been sitting for three or four months in the archives, and she comes one day, and she says: "Jo, I don't think I'm going to manage the next premiere. I think it's a good idea if we bring back Come Dance With Me." I said: "What? But, Pina, I've been sitting in this office for four or five months. Sitting here, 12 hours a day on my ass. You want me now, in three weeks, to get up and do Komm tanz mit mir? I'm 58, Pina. Are you really serious?" "Yes Jo, I do think so." I don't know what I did. I started to jump on trampolines. I did this and that. I also taught the piece to the group. Then at the end, you step in and you do your own part. She came at the end, to a rehearsal, and we were doing a run through. In the middle of the piece, she said: "Jo, are you all right? Do you have to stop? You look so exhausted." I said: "Pina, this is the worst part of the piece, it's nearly over for me now. Just leave me alone, let me go on." She had forgotten herself, how demanding these old pieces were. She had done so many of the other kind of pieces, that to bring back something like this, was difficult for her – "Oh, yes. I did that. I forgot that, Jo. Oh, this is really difficult for you, Jo. Are you all right?" But I didn't appreciate her comments, because I had to get through it. It's one of those pieces that you have to give everything, 100%. I don't know what was more difficult: Come Dance With Me or The Seven Deadly Sins. It's difficult for the public to watch that kind of thing. It's really torture.

Sure, you are on stage the whole time. You even have three dresses to change to.

All on stage. You try to escape the situation in a way that, you think you can leave this man who's being so violent with words. He has sunglasses on in that piece. He's in a white suit, a white hat, and he's in this sundeck chair. Just looking at these girls, but particularly me that's meat for him. He makes me go underneath this chair, and there's a bar across it. And you lie there and this bar is behind you. Then, he screams: "And now go back outside, go out the door and come back and tell me that you love me." You run out for a second, you come back on, you stand there. "Ich liebe Dich" [I love you], and you mean it. And he screams: "Nein, I don't believe you! Get back under this chair." So, you go back under the chair, and he picks hurtful words from these songs. And then he says: "Go back and say it again." And you go back, and you say it, almost exactly the same way, really meaning it. "Ich liebe Dich" [I love you]. "I don't believe it! Come back here." And then you go back under there. It's so shameful. It's the moment I hated the most: going under his chair, listening to those words. You know, you watch television, you know what people's marriages are like. These things are happening, they can be real in a different way. Pina Bausch put these kind of things on stage, and the person that could portray these relationships best, was always me. (laughs) This was one of my talents. I was always good at crying on stage and screaming and laughing, still being also very human. I'm not always a dancer. I have kind of two lives and that keeps me good on the ground. Both lives are not easy, but it's okay.