L'après-midi d'un faune (1965)

The Afternoon of a Faun – 1965 version 

When she returned from New York in 1961, Pina Bausch joined the Essen Folkwangballet, a company formed by Kurt Jooss, where she met Jean Cébron. Together, they worked on a technique oriented by the conceptions of Rudolf Laban, mixed with contributions made by North-American Modern Dance and the legacy of Enrico Cecchetti in the world of ballet. For these two exceptional interpreters, Kurt Jooss delivered, in March 1966 to Claude Debussy’s music, his version of The Afternoon of a Faun. The play of dynamic contrasts, combined with the modulations of movement patterns, in turn treated on a multidirectional mode or according to flat logics, reminiscences of Nijinsky’s work, shape the choreographic material. The score, prepared in Labanotation at the time of its creation, today allows Noëlle Simonet to give new shape to this little known work. 

(source : programme du CND)