Interview avec Josephine Ann Endicott, 7.6.2023 (2/2)

Those first seasons brought pieces like The Rite of Spring, The Seven Deadly Sins, "Bluebeard" and Come Dance With Me that deal with something very dark in human nature, in very broad ways. But then, we come to the next season with Renate Emigrates. Which brings another feeling. Can you tell us something about that?

It was for me, a breath of fresh air to do a piece like Renate Emigrates. I didn't have to scream or cry or laugh anymore. I could just be this young teenager girl inventing stories from comic books. It had a touch of Hollywood. Pina Bausch had given me some love story teenage comics. And she said: "Just read these" – you know, there're pictures and a buble with text in it – "and make some little stories out of it Jo." She also gave me some very old photos with poses: innocent, naive. And I would study these photos and make sure I got exactly the same hands, the same look. It brought another side of Jo Ann Endicott: this young side into this piece. One day, Rolf Borzik brought into the Lichtburg a rack of clothes. There was one dress with puff sleeves, waist and short skirt that I thought: "Oh, I love that dress. I have to put it on." It was pink, and had a petticoat underneath, and then I put a bow on my hair. And I just knew that my name is Renate and the man that I'm in love with, his name will be Dick. Because for me, it was a funny thing to call someone Dick. In Germany it's not a well known name. Dick is a dick in English, so I made up these stories and Pina liked my stories and we were built into a little thing. I invented a little walk. I made my little house, picked up two roses, that became a telephone where I spoke to Dick. We had wonderful music, and it was just another side of Pina Bausch. There's one scene where all the men were dressed up as angels. Another thing I can do very well is burp. Am I allowed to burp now? [Of course!] In those days we used to go out after rehearsals quite a lot with Pina. Not everybody, just the groupies and I was in the groupies. And we talked further about the pieces, the work or how to go on. One night I said to Pina: "Oh, do you know Pina? I feel like burping. I want to show you how I can burp." She said: "Oh, maybe you could eat the feathers of the angels, Jo." So she brought in the scene a box of feathers, and I would, as Angela, pick up the feathers and pretend I'm eating them. – I'm going to burp now. (burps loudly). I'm sorry. (laughs) She loved it so much. She said: "You have to burp for me in the piece. – It was clear – Only two long burps, three times will be too much, Jo." There were so many funny things in there. There was a line where the actor Erich Leukert had a sign "Toilet" with an arrow pointing to the toilet. We would come in looking like this (shows) with this stupid step (shows). We would follow the sign that leads to the toilet, then I would step out of the line and do like she has to go to the toilet (shows). I was allowed to make a lot of faces. Still, too much is too much, so I always had Pina's eyes. I could feel throught her poker face when it would be too much – that's enough. So, then I would go off and come back (mouths the word "Toilet"). We were having a bit more fun in that piece.

What about the sets?

The set was great, that was mountains of ice. They were huge mountains of white styrofoam. They were like icebergs, snow. How many there were? I don't know. What else happened? It was crazy. Marion Cito went out into the public and said: "Bonbons, bonbons! Who wants bonbons?" Lots of colours, ribbons and bows and nice makeup. No more of this horrible, painful side of life, here you could just enjoy it.

The title of the pieces usually have a subtitle. And the subtitle of this one is an "Operetta by Pina Bausch".

Operetta, oh yeah. There were things like this song: "Some Enchanted Evening". In the beginning, there's this big moment, you might think John Wayne is going to come on stage, or Elvis Presley? It had an operetta feeling about it.

Renate Emigrates hasn't been revived in a long time.

Well, there was talk about it after Pina had passed away. Dominique Mercy took over the company with Robert Sturm, and they wanted to bring it back. Dominique called me, but I found that the rehearsal time was not long enough to do it well. I said that to Dominique, and without me, I think he said, we won't be doing it. I felt a bit terrible, a bit guilty that they couldn't do it because I said no. I know that Pina did want to bring it back, but she wanted to shorten it a little bit.

The beginning, "Some Enchanted Evening" goes on and on.

It goes on and on. But we got used to all those lenghty scenes with Pina. It'd maybe be worth having another look at a video and think if it's right for the company now or for another company? You need the characters, you need the figures. You need these innocent kind of people.

I'm sorry for the burping. (laughs) With Pina Bausch the more things you could do, the more she would take. Everything went into the work. If you could play the piano, play saxophone, tap or anything, it all went into her pieces. The only thing she avoided was religious or political themes.

After Renate Emigrates, in that season ...

Did we only do Renate Emigrates in that season?

Actually three pieces.

What else did we do?

"Macbeth" – it's a long title.

He Takes Her by The Hand and Leads Her Into the Castle, The Others Follow

Which is a stage direction in the in the text of Macbeth. This wasn't created in Wuppertal.

We created it in Bochum. The premiere was in Bochum.

I think Raimund Hoghe was a big help to Pina Bausch. Even if he was just there, listening and saying what he thought – I think he was there about ten years. There was somebody always there for Pina. Either it was Rolf Borzik, when they were together – they were always talking about the work. Peter Pabst was also always there, also talking into the middle of the night, discussing what kind of stage sets. It was always very nice for Pina and important that she knew she had someone there. So often Raimund Hoghe was also there or Hans Pop in the early days.

We were in a factory in Bochum. It was very, very cold there. We weren't many people: Mechthild Grossmann – the actress, Vitus Zeplichal - an actor from Bochum, Rudolph Lauterburg, from the Tanztheater me, Vivienne Newport, Soňa Červená - an opera singer, Dominique Mercy and Jan Minařík, of course. Tjitske Broesma was in the beginning, but then she went out. We had somebody as an apprentice for the props Hans Dieter Knebel. This person Hans Dieter Knebel, who mostly brought us coffee, checked that it was warm enough, and made sure that everything we need was, whenever anybody was not feeling well or not present, he would jump in and take their place. Somehow Pina Bausch got so used to him being there. He was a baker before, then he was doing the props, and she got so used to his presence that she created a role, a very important role in the piece, in "Macbeth", a very pleasant guy to work with. But it was a long process, it went very slow. We were improvising a lot. When we finally had it, this Shakespeare Gesellschaft was invited for the premiere – The Shakespeare Association. So, they all came to the premiere in their suits and their ties and everything, thinking that they were going to see Macbeth with lots of text and a story, but it wasn't. The title of the piece was He Takes Her by The Hand and Leads Her Into the Castle, The Others Follow, and it's just and leaning on Macbeth. We start the piece, we're just lying on the sofas. The stage is like a mess hall, run down, a shower that is broken, an old bed at the back, something like a confessional cabinet. Everything was half broken. There's one scene where we jump in the furniture, and if you jumped from the back into them – which was a great thing to do – you didn't know if a leg was going to fall off or if all was just going to fall to pieces. Anyway, these people were there and we start sleeping and we do maybe half an hour of the piece. And they start booing and leaving, saying "go home" or whatever. I was down in the front, just lying on the ground. And I was hoping that Mechthild would ... It was really a turmoil, it was exploding and it was impossible to go on. And I thought "Mechthild, why don't you get up and tell them to stop it? Somebody has to do something." Because I was down in the front, maybe it was more extreme, so I got up. In those days, my German was even worse than it is now. Anyway, I got up and I said: "If you don't like it, go home and watch television. It's impossible for us to go on." And I left the stage, and when I was off the stage, I thought: "Oh my God, what have you done, Jo? Pina is not going to like this." So I trotted back on the stage and lied down to almost complete silence. Some people clapped, some people still started to boo. And then, the piece from then on could continue on in some kind of peaceful way. My heart was going bum bum bum (racing). I couldn't bear it. So, I was very courageous. Maybe these kind of things came from my time in Australia, when working with Nureyev and I saw this thing, I told you about, when he went off stage. Maybe unconsciously, I learnt this kind of things, I don't know. Or I'm just this spontaneous person, and for me it was either: you go home or I go off and I don't come back! Still, something had to happen. Yeah.

Three years ago we restaged "Macbeth". Hans Dieter came on the team, we had a complete new cast and for Mechthild Grossman. I thought: "Oh my God, I'm never going to be able to cast it without Mechthild." But Mechthild felt she was too old for that, and she didn't want to be in it. So we cast this actress, Johanna Wokalek, who is quite well known in Germany, but she's nothing like Mechthild. So, we had to take the risk, to find the root to what was in Mechthild's personality in this role, that made her so special and make it in another kind of way. So, I had to be very calm and patient with Johanna. But we did a really good job. I think it was really a good series of performances. It was, of course different, it was the Macbeth for now, but it said the same things: it was very authentic, still. Julie Shanahan was in the role of Soňa Červená, the singer. Stephanie Thoyak and Breanna O'Mara were sharing my part. Jonathan Fredrickson was doing Dominique Mercy's part. Oleg Stepanov was doing Hans Dieter Knebel part. We have a lot of work, but they understood it. They wanted to do it. It was a very nice experience and the public loved it. So was not a hint of any booing around anymore. Those pieces are so fundamentally strong.

These pieces also show a development in the artistic research of Pina Bausch.

Yeah, it was another another way to go for Pina. It was the first time that we had this small group of people, with actors, this one singer and just a few dancers. I think we were about three months in Bochum. Driving back and forward in the rain, in the snow – Vivienne Newport and me.

I like to stay a little on the work process. Looking from now, after you also worked staging on actresses and singers – it's a different language when talk to them. Now in retrospect, and also quoting Pina Bausch, about how she dealt with that. Can tell us about this process and how Rolf Borzik was bringing ideas or objects? How was this working process?

It was always teamwork. The partnership between Pina Bausch and Rolf Bozik – they were always talking about the work – helped her sorting things out. He was also full of ideas, but there were no shortcuts ever: you talk everything into the last detail. You try everything out a thousand times until you find really what she's looking for. You try one of the questions first alone, then you try it with some a partner, you try it in a group, you try it quicker, you try it in slow motion. You have to keep the belief that we'll find it in the end: through patience, trying, believing and trusting each other. There were always difficult moments. There were no shortcuts to any piece. There's no recipe for any of the pieces. Either you want to be part of it or you don't – and you leave. I always found each process fascinating because Pina Bausch was, for me, so fascinating. Often you weren't told anything. You just kept trying and trying, and we did. We went on, and each time you came out and you'd learn something else. You saw, this time, how singers work. You saw, how actors and actresses work. You learned how to speak with them, and that was good for later. Because when you do work with a famous actress, or you are sent to New York to work with Barbara Sukowa or Meret Beker or Melissa Madden Gray or Utter Lemper, you have to know how to correct these people. You know, it's like: can you correct Utte Lemper? If you have to, you have to. It's something that I had to learn over all those 50 years now. But, I think, it was something that Pina also knew I could do. She'd say always: "Oh Jo, can you go to New York and work with BAM?" "Why me Pina? Why don't you go?" She was always, somehow a little bit afraid of those people. When we did the other Bluebeard in Avignon, the conductor was Pierre Boulez. She felt like: "Oh, I'm working now with Pierre Boulez!" It was a big stress for her: will they be able to deal with her way of working – with being so slow in her decisions to do this, or that, to have to try out that. She got a lot of stress in this Bluebeard's Castle, but also because she'd already done a genius "Bluebeard" before.

In 1998 Pina was asked by the Avignon, Aix-en-Provence Festival to do another Bluebeard's Castle but with live orchestra, not the tape recorder version, with two very well-known singers who would sing the part of Bluebeard and the part of Judith. Already you could feel Pina's instinct, that she was against it. Instinctively, she knew she had done this "Bluebeard" in a very good way, even though it was very brutal, no one can say it's not a genius work. But to have to do another one, after you've done a good one, how can you free yourself from your old "Bluebeard"? So, she took not many dancers. She took Jan Minařík who played the Bluebeard back then. I hadn't seen Marlis Alt for many, many years. She asked Marlis to come for this experience, this new Bluebeard's Castle. She had me, she had Andrey Berezin, Raphaëlle Delaunay, Julie Shanahan, Rainer Behr. I think that was it. Mariko Aoyama was assisting her. So, because she got these people, she got the strongest dancers she thought she needed. We did it in the holidays anyway. Still, you you knew from the beginning that something was bothering her. Extremely bothering her. She didn't feel well, with the whole process. And the questions ... We were fiddling around here, and fiddling around there. She was sometimes bringing back some of the old things that we've done in "Bluebeard". The whole process was very, very difficult. By the time we got to the dress rehearsals, Peter Pabst did beautiful costumes. I liked my costumes. I liked the stage that she had set. The next day, she changed the mirrors. All the dresses were taken away. She just was not happy with this creation. She was often hiding in corners and you felt her thinking. She needed help, but you didn't know how to help her. Because when she's in that situation, you can't help her. We are there for her, always! She only has to ask us. But she was stuck, really stuck. She was saying things in the rehearsals like: "I have failed you all. I'm not where I wanted to be." I don't know what I wrote in my book, I thought it was important to write those things. Because then you see the chronology, you could feel what was happening and what's important to her. She couldn't get it, she just couldn't get it. Then after that, it's not very often mentioned that we even did this. In none of the histories of Pina Bausch is written that we had this other Bluebeard's Castle. We never performed it again. We only did it about four or five times. I think it had something, but it was really not a happy process.

Mechthild Grossmann had had already worked singing in (Macbeth sic) The Seven Deadly Sins with the company. But then, you had Vitus Zeplichal und Hans Dieter Knebel that eventually came into the company.

Yes, after "Macbeth" he was offered a contract with Pina Bausch. Actually, the funny thing was he danced the role of "Blaubart" with Meryl Tankard. I don't know if there are videos of this, there might be. It's so amazing, no? He was in pieces like Kontakthof, in Keuschheitslegende (Legend of Chastity), in Arien.

Hans Dieter Knebel stayed several years with us, but then he left and went Vienna and was taken into the Burgtheater, one of the most famous theatres in the world. He is still working there, he's even older than I am. He is so loved as an actor. He's such a nice person. I really, really, really liked him.

How those actors, movement-wise integrated in the work that would come to be? Did that change any of the dynamics of the company as a group, and as a creative environment?

I would say so. The thing is, for me it's very interesting to watch people moving. I mean, what's the saying? "It's not about how you move, it's what makes people move." Meththild Grossmann was the only official actress who had an official contract with us. She was with us for many, many years, either full time or as a guest. Mechthild could move – she was even in "Bluebeard". But it's always interesting to see someone who's not a dancer move. This non-perfection way of moving is very interesting for me. In Hans Dieter Knebel little dance in "Macbeth" he'll take just little (sings and dances) steps, and the way he looked. Try to get a dancer to do this – to learn this, and you realise that what was so interesting in the way Hans did it, so unique, that couldn't be found in a dancer, was him: his whole being. This was also for Pina Bausch so interesting. It was fascinating seeing Hans Dieter do that part. Because Mechthild was such a strong personality and Hans Dieter also in his way, these were all the colours that formed the company. It's like a big pot. Pina needed this kind of person, and that, and all these colours, to make those pieces. And as long as you stay human – which was the underlying thing needed – the most important thing is to be yourself, to stay human in whatever you are doing. Whether it's a dancing role, it's all about what you are giving and saying. Showing all these things that exist inside you, in your person, all the things you know about life, your story. Then how Pina could refine it and mould it into something very artistic in such a extremely wonderful way. In a way you didn't even realise yourself what she was doing. All of these people, when we first came in 1973, different people coming from all parts of the world had very strong personalities, and different colours. I think later, I don't know if it's about globalization, a lot of people are losing their identities. We need faces, we need eyes, we need ears, we need all sorts of attention. We need arms, we need legs, we need feet, we need people for the pieces to be able to carry what Pina Bausch wanted us to carry. We didn't know what we were carrying, sometimes. We're carrying her to her next big step.

In that season [1977/78] there was a change of the general director of the theatre. There was the Lichtburg as the rehearsal space, possibly for Renate Emigrates and certainly for Café Müller. But many people left: Dominique Mercy, Marlis Alt, Tjitske Broersma, and some other people came into the company. So, we have a new configuration, meaning many people have to learn roles, especially for the Stravinsky evening. Then there was a new piece Kontakthof. So, let's go back to the creation of Kontakthof.

Kontakthof is another wonderful piece of Pina Bausch, very well-structured and all this lovely music from the twenties, thirties, or is it forties? Those unforgettable musics like Frühlings und Sonnenschein. It's a long piece. There are a lot of repetitions, but the repeats seem important because she's always thematizing something, which is important to show it again somehow. I love the costumes, I love the set. The costumes were these very tight dresses, and this was the first time for me that I was wearing nice high shoes and lovely tight dresses. I felt well in this dress. I love them all. Each of the women had a different colour tight dress, really luscious. When you would go down like this (shows), you would almost feel the zipper or the the seam splitting. Maybe because when you sweat the material – satin – sticks on your body. Yeah, but nevertheless, it's great to be in those dresses. There are lots of things happening. There are funny things. There is this couple the Rosa Mädchen (the pink girls) where we come out, and do this identical little dance to with little movements. The first person I did this with was with Meryl Tankard. Meryl was also from Australia. You know, working on this with Pina Bausch was so easy, we were finished with this Rosa Mädchen in 3 hours maybe, really quickly. Which is very unusual, but because we all had so much fun. There are bitching scenes where you sit down and you just bitch about the people, the other dancers on stage. If you're Australian, we are kind of brought up bitching. So Meryl and I felt like we could bitch for hours and hours, and every night with no special text – just make it up every night. We had great fun together, but there are other scenes which are just so touching. That's just unbearable to watch.

There is this hip step – so stupid. (shows) I would pick out a dancer and say: "Show me the hip step." – I had many sides in that piece: the vamp, speaking, singing, crying, laughing. – "No, show me! It's just, you know, big, fat, juicy circles. Do it. No, that's not right. Pull up your jacket. Turn around. Do it to the front. You're not doing it properly. Do it again. Take a step. Look at me! I'll show you one more time. Big, fat, juicy circles. Now, do it. Oh, you're never going to get it." Then, I go back into the group and say "Music!" And then the group comes forward doing this hip step to (sings Charlie Chaplin's Titine) "da da da da da da da da da da da". Such a great step to this music. I can't imagine any other step being so fantastic to this music (sings Charlie Chaplin's Titine) "bum, bum bum, bum, bum, bum, bum." What do you want to do? So great! Then we come forward and it's quite exhausting. But still, if you would see Pina showing you this hip step, she was actually the only one that really could do it so well. It's not easy and most people can't do it. Pina, for her body, had actually rather large hips, she was always skinny, skinny. You have to be down and pliè and her hips were just [going very wide]. Then there's this circle where we just go around with everyday gestures, which is nothing, you know, it's just lthis (shows). That was the first time when we had such small things, this circle comes three times in the piece. The men follow one girl, and then they join in: man, woman, man, woman. And each time you pass the public, you smile into the public nicely, mostly without teeth. Pina Bausch had something against smiles with teeth. So, you smile mostly without showing your teeth, but in a very charming way. Also, not easy, not easy. But, if you do it from your inside and the light comes out of your eye, for the public, it's really nice to watch. Then at the end, there's that scene where Meryl comes down and stands there, and she's so alone, and one man comes and touches her gently on the shoulder. The next one comes from the other side, and he takes her arm, and pets it. Then another man comes and he does something else, and another man comes and another man. These Zärtlichkeiten (caresses) caresses, turns slowly into something revolting, something like being eaten alive. It turns into groping and she has to stand there and bear it. So, by the end, she can hardly stand it, and tears are running down. Then the circle music starts, and all the men follow the other lady. In one performance, I was sitting, watching, and during this scene, somebody screamed out from the audience: "Leave her alone." I can really understand because it gets unbearable to watch, when you see this woman on stage being attacked by these men, misused. Still, the music is lovely, the stage is lovely, the costumes are gorgeous. It's another Rolf Borzik and Pina Bausch [collaboration]. I think, it's two and a half hours long with the intermission.

Was the process of questions and getting good material there as well?

Yes. This was quite an important piece for Pina, because we started again with questions and answers. The caressing was a question, which is a guideline which goes through the piece: "Six gestures of Zärtlichkeit (tenderness)." You thought up your own gestures. Anne Martin was the leading girl in the circle, and she just did a caressing her face – like this. We had our eyes closed (shows) and "Plop" – just things you do at home. Then go down to here, something here and here. (shows) You would do it with the feeling. The man brings you forward quite formally, he leaves you there. Then, to make it convincing, you have to go into yourself, feel alone, then you start your movement. You cannot just close your eyes and do something like this (shows) because it won't look like anything. But if you go inside yourself, think of the moment, the question, and you do it with the feeling something happens to your face and in the way you stand that makes it so touching. Or you have something like this (shows) it's such a beautiful movement, but only if you do it with the right feeling.

There was this idea of restaging this piece with a group of seniors, over 65. Do you remember the initiative of it? Did it come from Pina Bausch or did somebody have this just urge and then you came onboard? Can you tell us about something of that process?

Yeah, the initiative definitely came from Pina Bausch. I think it was a wish she had simmering in her for some years. It started maybe in October 1999. Beatrice Libonati was the rehearsal director and Ed Kortlandt was there. Around December, I got a call from Pina asking if I could come and help out, take over the solo roles of my and Meryl Tankard's part. I remember thinking to myself: "Oh, my God! What am I getting myself into?" I had heard a little bit about the difficulties of working with elderly people that are non-professionals. But, Jo could never say "No" to Pina. So, Jo went. We chose, in the beginning, four ladies for these two main parts. They were supposed to be seniors over, or at least 65. One of them had lied about her age, she was maybe only 61 or something. Nevertheless, it was good to have her because she was a little bit quicker, faster, maybe musically quicker, and her brain was quick. I'm not saying the others weren't good in their brains. They were all fine. So, how do you teach someone to put the feet in this direction? (shows) Okay, that's already something. Put the arms nicely here, the fingers there. Go in pliè, and have this (shows) out, put the head here, and have the eyes there. It's really easy for a professional. Then, you take two steps and a little jump, another two steps and a little jump, then the last one jump together. How do you teach them to do this? (shows) Shoulder up here, here, here, and come down. It's very, very slow. You just go from day to day. Then one day you might say to those four dancers: "Let's do what we did yesterday." "No, but we never did that yesterday, Jo." "Yes, we did. You forgot we did it." Okay. Everything took time. Everything was slow, but I got to love these people. I really got to enjoy the imperfection of not being able to do it properly. If I knew they were doing it to their limit, doing it as well as they could, something was kind of nice in that they couldn't do it really properly. It was another learning process for me. I remember that the group things they took a long time with Beatrice. There's a lot of stuff in there. I don't know how long we took to teach it. But, I learned different stories from their lives. I was staying at one of their places, then later at somebody else's place. So, some of them were funny, some of them were not so funny. I was learning lots of things about life from them, and while they were learning things about dance and about Pina from me. It was always a learning process. When any of them got sick on stage, I was the one to jump in. One night one of the men was getting really carried away with this Boogie an der Wand as it's called. Suddenly, his teeth fell out, his false teeth. I happened to be on stage, and I thought: "Oh my God, his teeth are on the floor." He just picked them up, turned around and put them back in. They became really professional senior dancers. We toured a lot with it. Everybody loved this senior Kontakthof. You had to also learn how to speak with these people. You had to learn how to deal with their incapabilities, their capabilities. Some of them had hearing aids. You had to know, when they go "What did you say?" A lot of them were just unconscious: we're supposed to be sitting in the row in the beginning, and there's that lovely music, and some of them would start tapping with their foot. They didn't even know. Then you say: "Oh, stop tapping with your foot, Reiner." "Oh, yeah, I'm doing that." So, all the sitting there picking their noses or scratching their head, they had to learn all this kinds of things. They learned so much. We did it for 12 years! Every so often we had to bring a couple of new seniors into it, because some of them had gotten sick or moved away. So, it was another weary process teaching new seniors, slowly again. If you started with 65 or 70, after 12 years, now you're 82 or 83. It was getting to the point where we should stop soon. You were always patching it up here and there. So, the day came and we had to tell them: "Well, thank you, but the time has come to end it." Oh, it was like taking away something so special. That was really hard. So, after a while, Bénédicte Billiet took over and Beatrice left the project.

I also interviewed Bénédicte Billiet. She was saying: "The team is so important. Jo Ann and I make a perfect team." What makes a perfect team, from your side?

Yeah. It's definitely a pleasure to work with Bénédicte. We do work very well together, because we are both workers. We don't mind working 14 hours a day. If I need something, I can say to Bénédicte – I don't even need to say it, she knows – and we would meet. Let's say with the seniors or the teenager's Kontakthof, we had to learn all the parts, we knew it already, but some things you have to know better than anybody will ever know. So, we'd meet in the office and up there, before we even start our rehearsal, I would say: "Bénédicte, I'll be the man today, you be the woman. I'll learn now what the men do." Because there's some of the Zärtlichkeiten (caresses) the man does on the woman, I had to know. And she had to know the women's parts. We wanted to do a good job, we were both perfectionists. She's very good in checking all the things around the stage: if the chairs are all right, all the props placings. And I'm more there for the artistic side, maybe, but together we are a perfect team. I like to work with her. We understand each other very well. It's all always about the teamwork. You have to be able to rely on each other. And there's something about the two of us, we're very similar in many aspects. What was your question?

The other question was about learning more about the pieces ...

Yes, you're always learning more about the piece because there's so many things. Still, because you danced it 12 years long or so, until you almost couldn't stand the piece, you need a break from it. Because you sat so many years beside Pina and you got her comments, and you got to understand her poker face, without her saying anything. You learn about her way of looking, what you need and how to get there. How to give time to the dancer in front of you, until you've established trust, so that you're able to ask them to go further, when you're not getting exactly where you need to get – I need more from inside. You learn all of these things from Pina, after you worked so many years with her. But in all of the pieces, it's a Fass ohne Boden (a bottomless pit): there're so many new things that you learn each time you watch a piece. Still, there are some roles that just belong to the original dancers and some things that are just not repeatable – although you are forced to make the best of it. Jan Minařík is one of the people that is very hard to replace, but because you worked so many years with Jan, you kind of know where you have to get to, but to find all his qualities ... Andrey Berezin took over a lot of Jan's parts. He was the perfect person in the company at that moment, because he has this kind of strange Buster Keaton of sense of humour – Charlie Chaplin, but some people are very difficult to replace.

You already mentioned the teenager's company. Can you tell us about the processes of Kontakthof. With Teenagers over 14?

This was 2007 when we were asked by Pina Bausch. It was when I came back into a full time contract. She said: "One of the things I would like to engage you for, Jo, is archives and this project with teenagers. It's one favour I would really like you to do for me, Jo." And it was on the tip of my tongue to say "No Pina and no, please don't ask me to do another Kontakthof. But she had this way, when she asked you to do something, in that charming wrap-around-the-finger voice, you cannot say "No" to Pina. In 2007, she was already getting into this tired exhaustion. I could feel her very exhausted, she had this tired kind of sweet, charming voice and that look – you just couldn't say "No". But, I know what children in puberty are like, because I have three children of my own. It was a dreadful time, not with all three of my children, but with my daughter, it was really difficult. I knew I was getting myself into another new deep water. But for Pina, I don't know, you just said "Yes". So, now you start somewhere. This project was again with Bénédicte Billiet, so I felt I have someone safe. In the beginning we went to five different schools, and we did a workshop. Some of the children came just because they wanted to get out of the next lesson. It was madness. Right away you had to say: "Rehearsals will be every Saturday. That's your free day, but the children that want to come, please come on the Saturday in the Feuerwehr (Fire Service Building) here in Wuppertal-Barmen." A lot of children didn't come, still we were left with a lot. We had some workshops and we had to quickly eliminate some, because you only need to have 40 or 50 teenagers. The first thing we did with them – where you can see them very well – is to ask them to do the beginning of the piece: stand up, come forward and show me yourself from the front, from behind, how you look with your hair back (shows), how your teeth look, how are your hands, how you look from the side and how your feet look. You asked them to do it a few times. It was really quite obvious which ones are no-go, and which ones might be interesting. So, the sorting-out process was not easy, but it was all right. Then we started. We had all different kinds of schoolchildren: from gymnasium, from the low level, from very low, low level. We had some Roma, Muslims, most of them were German, some from rich families, some from poor families. The boys, I thought, were more interested about coming with gel in their hair, and spray under their arms. The girls were also interested. The youngest girl was 12, maybe the oldest about 17. So, when you are 12 and the performance was planned a year later, a lot can happen with your body until you are 13. We couldn't make any dresses until quite later, because in another year, they will have breasts, they will be maybe like this or like that. (shows) Then you had to find the soloist and then give them their parts. It became like a meeting point. It got to be really fun. The first couple of months, it was like work: (bored) "Oh, we're meeting this Saturday in the Lichtburg", but after a few months, it was like: (excited) "Oh, we've got rehearsal today in the Lichtburg. We're going to meet Bénédicte and Jo. Let's have a lot of fun." It became a real thing. We all sort of got together and it became like an addiction for them. It was very important for their process of the getting out of this age into growing up. It helped many, many, many of them with their problems. There are some scenes where the boys had to touch the girls. One of the girls would come and say: "I don't want to be with that man. I can't stand him. He smells. No, I don't want him touching me, Jo." There were lots of things going on, that they didn't need to know about, but there were a lot of tears. During the time some couples were forming secretly. As they were getting used to each other, they became a very strong bulk of of people. We had lots of different personalities: funny, some of them were so funny. Both of us, Benedict and I, ended up having 28 more children, other than our own children. They were sending emails and it was nice having such a big family. It was also very successful: we went on tour, but going on tour with them was another story. We had teachers from the different schools who looked after them, when we were in the hotels. Some of them were, like I said, 17, some 13, some 14. So, you'd come back after perform, and some of them had smuggled a bit of alcohol into their rooms. Some of them were partying in their rooms, till you don't know what time. You couldn't control it. You didn't want to: either you had to party with them or you had to be like a policewoman and be in front of their doors. The next morning you'd have corrections. Some of them would come like, like this (shows) to corrections, and you knew they'd been up drinking, or not sleeping or partying. "Wah Jo? Oh. Eckt, Jo?". It's another language that you had to speak with them, not like with the seniors. I know the language of teenagers, because my own children speak like that. I knew how to to speak with them as well, and Bénédicte also has children. They were great, too. Then we went to the Berlinale. We were nominated. We were invited to the Berlinale with the teenagers and with the seniors. We were nominated for the Olivier Award. There was a lovely film from Anne Linsel "Dancing Dreams" about the Teenagers. Very nice film. There's also another film about the seniors and from ... [L'Arche], also very nice.

By the time the seniors were finishing up, there was one season when there were the three Kontakthof, both the seniors teenagers and Tanztheater Wuppertal.

Yes, there was. My life evolved around Kontakthof and because Pina watched every performance, we were also obliged to watch every performance. So you are giving rehearsals, you are watching the performance day after day after day after day. It's a long piece, the themes in that piece, the music, they make you sometimes happy, but if you are tired, they can make you also feel very, very lonely. So you'll be going home after these long days with the teenagers, sometimes we had performances with the teenagers and seniors on the one day, one time in England or in France. So having both lots of them, it's so exhausting. Some nights I would go home and I'd think, I'm feeling so lonely. I'm just going home on my own. I've done all this "Kontakthof" and who's there to be caressing me? You know, there's no Pina anymore. It was starting to get to me. So, after those 14 years of that Kontakthof I was up to here with Kontakthof and I wanted nothing to do with it for a while. I had to get over it. And then in 2018, we did a new Kontakthof with a whole new cast of dancers for the Tanztheater. With Julie Shanahan, myself and Franko Schmidt in the team, and then we were asked to do it in the Paris Opera with dancers from the Paris Opera. That was a really nice experience, because in the Paris Opera there are 156 dancers working there. They have all levels of the hierarchy of dancers, but before we did Kontakthof Alan Lucien Øyen had done a piece for them. Lucien had worked also here, and his work is not similar to Pina, but he works a lot with a special group, also searching for a special type of person / dancer for his works. I saw his performance, and his dancers were speaking, and they were not just dancers, I could feel, persons underneath the dance. So, we had a workshop there for three days with about 90 dancers. It was just terrible: too many dancers in too short time. We had to decide on the cast, so we took like 40, but we couldn't say who's doing this part, who's doing that. And I had heard from several sides: "Oh, how can you want to do Kontakthof in the Paris Opera, Jo? They're ballet dancers. They'll never be able to do that piece, Jo." But, if you've done it with seniors, you've done it with teenagers, you've done it with new dancers here, why can't you do it with them? I was convinced we could do it. So, we had finally our cast. And it was a nice group of people, dancers, and it was very harmonious. It was a really nice process. In the team this time was Breanna O'Mara, Julie Shanahan. I had asked Anne Martin to come along for two weeks. I was there for almost three months. Judi Shanahan was there for about four weeks, maybe Breanna maybe six weeks, Anne Martin was there for two weeks. We'd never had Anne Martin, who was an original Kontakthof dancer, join us in any of these older productions, and I thought: "Oh, maybe it's a good idea to have her come." And it was really great, her remembrances of the piece were very helpful. She was there in the beginning, it was for me very nice to have this old colleague come back and be part of this old production. It was a big help to me. She's also a worker, and if I continue working, I will also think to bring her back into the teams. Yeah. No, they were very helpful in all departments of the Paris Opera. The costumes were beautiful. The masks that they made were beautiful, the rocking horse. There's that white horse. He's very present and there's a battery inside that horse that makes it rock to a special timing. Its kind of musical. We didn't have the horse until quite late. He looked like the original horse, but the battery, once the girl got on the horse, it was too fast. We had to ask the the man to either slow it down or to order us a new battery. But to get the new battery, it was quite late. The premiere was in a couple of days, it didn't arrive, but he was managed to slow it down, but by slowing it down, we didn't have this noise. The horse makes a bit of noise like a creek and I missed the noise. If we ever do it again, he'll surely fix it. Nice dancers, we had only one Etoile Germain Louvet. He said: "I don't want to do any more _Swan Lake_s, anymore _Giselle_s I want to be in Kontakthof." He had some trouble with the top people, I think it was Aurélie Dupont at the time. But he said: "No, I want to do a Pina Bausch work." He managed to do a big step. In the beginning he's coming down like a prince, but you were able to talk to him. He was a really nice person. He understood, just calm down, calm, be yourself. It's your chance now to show me layers from inside yourself. I had two lots of Jos for my part, and two lots of Meryls or Nazareth Panaderos in that role, and they were both so different, but so good and so right. I was really proud. Was full house performance every night, we had in December almost 22 performances over Christmas and only one on the 1st of January was cancelled. Almost nobody got injured, because they liked to do it. People don't get injured when they like what they're doing. They were really nice. They turned into themselves and I was really happy for that. And they were very grateful, some of them sent me letters of thanks. That's always nice to have those letters because it makes it worthwhile. Yeah, I love letters. Emails too, but I prefer letters.