A Triumph of Duet and Disruption: CLUB AMOUR

ImpulsTanz Vienna [ENA] Last evening at the Burgtheater in Vienna, the groundbreaking triple-bill CLUB AMOUR.— featuring Pina Bausch’s Café Müller and two choreographies by Boris Charmatz—was presented by Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch + Terrain Boris Charmatz. As a modern ballet expert, I found this evening not just a reverent homage to Bausch’s legacy, but a bold expansion of emotional and aesthetic territory.

The three pieces—Aatt enen tionon, herses (une lente introduction), and Café Müller—form a compelling narrative of desire, memory, and the fragile architecture of human connection. Beginning the evening, Café Müller retains its haunting power. Inspired by Bausch’s memories of her father’s café, the piece unfolds through six dancers weaving through scattered chairs to Purcell’s languid strains. The choreography’s repeated motifs—touch, stumble, embrace—resonate with profound vulnerability. In this revival, the dancers embody Bausch’s spirit without imitation; their movements feel both ritualistic and spontaneous, transforming the Burgtheater stage into a space of collective memory, emotional rawness, and quiet resilience.

In stark contrast, Aatt enen tionon drops the audience into a maelstrom of energy, urgency, and primal rhythm. Here, Charmatz channels the raw immediacy of desire and unbridled movement. Six dancers—including Dean Biosca, Letizia Galloni, Christopher Tandy—move with unrestrained intensity, their bodies a landscape of impulse and resistance. The choreography feels both anarchic and communal, a kinetic exploration of human presence that complements Bausch’s introspective poetics with a daring visual language. Closing the program, herses, duo pares the ensemble back down to an intimate duet between Charmatz and Johanna-Elisa Lemke. Set to Stefan Fraunberger’s contemplative music, the duet balances stillness with sensitive tension.

Each caress, each breath, becomes amplified. It’s a quiet apex—an emotional pause that invites the audience into an intense moment of connection and contemplation. What struck me most is how these three works converse as a triptych. Director Charmatz steers the ensemble through high voltage, ritual, and quiet confession, demonstrating a profound understanding of Bausch’s choreographic essence—and yet, this is no simple pastiche. Instead, Charmatz translates Bausch’s emotional architecture into new choreographic forms, creating a dialogue across time and sensibility. The Burgtheater acts as the perfect container for this journey—from luminous disorder to dissolution, to ultimate vulnerability.

Across all three pieces, lighting (Yves Godin) and sound (Hubertus Biermann, Olivier Renouf) collaborate seamlessly to accentuate mood and movement. Muddy shadows frame stumbling bodies in Café Müller; raw glare underpins Aatt enen tionon’s carnival of bodies; soft nuance illuminates herses, duo’s turning inward. Overall, CLUB AMOUR. exemplifies how modern ballet can honor an iconic legacy while simultaneously renewing it. The evening is a brilliant testament to Tanztheater Wuppertal’s continuing relevance—and to Charmatz’s capacity to bridge the emotional breadth between choreography’s past and its evolving future. In CLUB AMOUR., dance feels vital, unpredictable, and deeply human.