Alternate Title Nelken, Viktor and Carnations (Nelken)
Premiere US Premiere
Country of Origin Germany
Description The 1988 appearance of Tanztheater Wuppertal brought the American premiere of two key pieces from Bausch’s repertoire: Viktor and Nelken. The Guardian describes Viktor as a “three-and-a-half hour collage of dance and theatre” in which we watch “grieving widows, blank-faced women lifting up their skirts, [and] men who fumble and giggle like schoolboys.” True to Bausch form, the stage for Nelken was guarded by live, Alsatian dogs, while men in evening gowns and high heels bunny hop through a field of carnations. The key to both pieces lay in Bausch’s imagination, a place where all confrontations—no matter how disturbing or cruel—resolve in surreally balanced images.
Identifier 1988s.00434
