Top 16 Quotes & Sayings by Pina Bausch

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a German dancer Pina Bausch.
Last updated on April 17, 2025.
Pina Bausch

Philippine "Pina" Bausch was a German dancer and choreographer who was a significant contributor to a neo-expressionist dance tradition now known as Tanztheater. Bausch's approach was noted for a stylized blend of dance movement, prominent sound design, and involved stage sets, as well as for engaging the dancers under her to help in the development of a piece, and her work had an influence on modern dance from the 1970s forward. Her work, regarded as a continuation of the European and American expressionist movements, incorporated many expressly dramatic elements and often explored themes connected to trauma, particularly trauma arising out of relationships. She created the company Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, which performs internationally.

I want to feel something, as a person. I don't want to be bored.
When I first began choreographing, I never thought of it as choreography but as expressing feelings. Though every piece is different, they are all trying to get at certain things that are difficult to put into words. In the work, everything belongs to everything else - the music, the set, the movement and whatever is said.
I'm not interested in how people move, but what moves them. — © Pina Bausch
I'm not interested in how people move, but what moves them.
Everything must come from the heart, must be lived.
It was not like I planned even to be a choreographer. It just happened to me somehow.
What I try to do is find a language for life.
Dance, dance, otherwise we are lost.
The things we discover for ourselves are the most important.
Repetition is not repetition, ... The same action makes you feel something completely different by the end
I am more interested in what moves people, than how they move.
I'm not interested in how people move; I'm interested in what makes them move.
I didn't want to imitate anybody. Any movement I knew, I didn't want to use.
I loved to dance because I was scared to speak. When I was moving, I could feel.
To understand what I am saying, you have to believe that dance is something other than technique. We forget where the movements come from. They are born from life. When you create a new work, the point of departure must be contemporary life -- not existing forms of dance.
Your fragility is also your strength.
I'm not so interested in how they move as in what moves them. — © Pina Bausch
I'm not so interested in how they move as in what moves them.
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