“How would you dance, if you knew you were going to die?”

The late choreographer Pina Bausch asked her dancers this question in 1975, when she created her vision of The Rite of Spring, where a young woman is sacrificed so spring can arrive. Her pioneering work, one of the first that established her iconic approach to dance theater, is now being danced by a newly assembled company of dancers from more than a dozen African countries.

Rite is paired with a new work created, performed, and inspired by the lives of two remarkable women: Germaine Acogny, the founder of the Senegalese company École des Sables who is widely considered “the mother of contemporary African dance,” and Malou Airuado, who performed leading roles in many of Bausch’s early works as a member of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. This poetic and tender antidote to Rite, common ground[s], reflects their shared histories and emotional experiences.

Join us after the Friday, October 21 performance for a Post-Performance Artist Q&A to get a glimpse into the lives and minds of the artists who bring their creativity to the stage.