7-11 April 2026. Sadler’s Wells Theatre London
reviewed by Sonia York-Pryce
Meryl Tankard—dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, and former dancer with Tanztheater Wuppertal—has recently offered her version of Pina Bausch’s Kontakthof, originally performed in 1978, giving it another unexpected life. Conceived and directed by Tankard, this production is accompanied by the archival film footage, set design and costumes of Bausch’s collaborator Rolf Borzik (1944–1980). Tankard’s restaging follows on from previous successful iterations, but this unique production brings together nine of the 20 original 1978 cast members.
This version, titled Kontakthof – Images of ’78, includes Australians Josephine Ann Endicott and Tankard with fellow cast members Elisabeth Clarke, Lutz Förster, John Giffin, Ed Kortlandt, Beatrice Libonati, Anne Martin, Arthur Rosenfeld, all aged between 70 and 80 years of age, and reprising their roles 45 years later. We are indeed seeing ‘age on stage’—living archives with intimate embodied knowledge of Bausch’s Kontakthof and her unique movement language and theatricality. This remarkable happening was not lost on the audiences. Over four nights at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, the performances were the hottest ticket in town, with many disappointed that seats were sold out. During the run, it was poignant to have Pina’s son Salomon Bausch in attendance at Sadler’s Wells.
My full review is below..
Sonia York-Pryce, 15 June 2026
Featured image: A moment from Kantakthof—’Echoes of ’78. Photo: © Ursula Kaufmann
Kontakthof—Echoes of ’78
In dance academia, Bausch’s Kontakthof is a signature work portraying desire and loneliness as it has lived many iterations. Among them were amateur seniors aged over 65 from Wuppertal, who delivered their own distinctive and highly successful interpretation in 2000; school students from Wuppertal aged over 14 in 2008; young dance students from Tanztheater in 2021; ballet dancers of the Paris Opéra in 2022; and now the re-staging with the original cast of the 1978 production. The fact that Kontakthof “continues to move people decades later is proof of its timeless aesthetic”, states Bausch’s biographer Marion Meyer. Endicott has been principal repetiteur of Kontakthof and other Bausch works, but had never imagined she would be reprising her varied roles in this seminal work as a 75-year-old dancer. In an interview at Sadler’s Wells between performances, Endicott told me:
It is magical. It is a kind of transformation that when you go on stage, I am dropping hopefully about 30 years of ageing just from the moment I open the curtain, and I can do that dance.
The brilliance of Tankard to incorporate Rolf Borzik’s archive film documentation cannot be overstated. It accomplishes a perfect juxtaposition of ‘youth versus ageing’, plus the merging of the present-day with the bygone. Tankard’s documentary film experience compounded with the vast Borzik Kontakthof film archive meant that edited footage could be used to mirror and illuminate the youthful 1978 cast, while giving precedence to those cast members no longer present. Tankard’s Kontakthof–Echoes of ’78 opens with the nine remaining performers reprising their roles, accompanied by Borzik’s archival black-and-white film projections of the cast from 1978. The projections are screened onto a vast gauze curtain by the proscenium, which acts like a palimpsest, intersecting the past with the present. The missing monochrome dancers—Arnaldo Alvarez, Fernando Cortizo, Gary Austin Crocker, Mari Di Lena, Silvia Kesselheim, Luis P Layag, Jan Minarík, Vivienne Newport, Monika Sagon, Heinz Samm and Christian Trouillas—loom like mythical giants, the antithesis of the seemingly minute but lifesized older dancers of today. The setting is haunting, with the passage of time illuminated. The scene is set with the nine performers seated on some of the numerous chairs skirting the sides of the dance hall, ready as a refuge for the weary, uninterested or the missing, and a piano. One by one, the dancers walk downstage and go through a series of movements, gestures, baring their teeth, adjusting their bodies, each performer making the motifs more bizarre. This is mirrored by the projections. We feel the presence and acknowledge the absence of the performers who are no longer alive or able to reinterpret their roles. Strangely, these vanished dancers make for greater poignancy to the original work, as there is an extreme sense of melancholy and loss as we watch the nine remaining perform alongside their monochrome youthful selves. The imagery is beautiful, emotive, and at times amusing. Could this production be considered a memento mori for Bausch, Borzik and the absent dancers? There were moments where I found myself close to tears and I noted that the production had a profound effect on others in the audience too.
These nine remaining performers are the last bodies of knowledge to breathe and regenerate life into Bausch’s Kontakthof, as they have lived and embodied the life experience of the roles. The evocative German songs of the 1920s/30s that accompanied by the performers swathed in elegant silk dresses and sharp suits give us an insight into a dance hall of the period, a place to make contacts, for couples to confront, and others to reach out.
Through the dancers in the ‘contact hall’, we experience the human condition, relationships that exhibit frustration, love, hate, sadness, loneliness, coyness, irritation, humour, despair, disruptions and curiosities that Bausch observed in her works. It’s a gathering for couples in a community space to dance, talk, observe, or fight. We view strained relationships, emotional expectations, and awkward situations. All reactions are present. The audience is placed as the voyeur, experiences that some can identify with, yet cannot look away. Bausch continues to confront us in death. The mere stamina of the cast is incredible and appears at odds with their current ages. Before the interval, the performers assemble centre stage, sit on chairs and introduce themselves one by one to the audience. It is an endearing and intimate moment, where the audience is invited to learn something about these wonderful performers.
The second half takes on more emotional tangents. Borzik’s archival footage is now projected more boldly onto the syce behind the performers; the imagery appears more prominent, almost like a portal into the past. Endicott embodies many roles, one that requires literal crying for about five minutes, then groaning ‘Aua’ into a microphone, comical but unsettling as it seems endless. Why? No one knows. Then Tankard and Endicott reappear as beguiling little girls—‘all frills and bows’—moving totally in synch with each other, mirrored against the archival footage of themselves behind them. They are intriguing to watch as both their youthful and mature bodies merge with hardly a hairs whisper in either duplication of movements. How is this possible? There is a section where the archival footage displays members of the original cast as slow dancing couples enveloped in tight embraces. We see one couple and Endicott alone holding an invisible/absent partner; it is a tender tragic moment and reminds us that we are all mere mortals. Ironically for those absent, the footage gives them an immortality, never to grow old. And so it goes on, more tragi-comic moments interspersed with men poking, groping and aggravating an expressionless Tankard. It is hard to watch. At times, the cast intersperse with wry knowing smiles, a juxtaposition to the emotional detritus scattered about the stage and screen.
These performers bring a whole new precedence and meaning to Kontakthof. To return to such an iconic work as older dancers enhanced with wisdom and longevity brings to reality a concept Bausch had once expressed to Tankard decades ago.
Sadly, Kontakthof – Echoes of ’78 will not be touring Australia.
Dancing through Time: Returning to Pina Bausch’s Kontakthof https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtFEAAIydWM
World Premiere
26.11.2024 Opernhaus Wuppertal Kontakthof Echoes of ‘78 is co-produced with Amare (The Hague), LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura, Festspielhaus St. Pölten, and China Shanghai International Arts Festival and supported as a contribution to the preparation of the Pina Bausch Centre with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and the City of Wuppertal.