theartsdesk Q&A: Meeting Pina Bausch

EDITORS' PICK: MEETING PINA BAUSCH An interview with the late great iconoclast of dance-theatre in her hometown Wuppertal

An interview with the late great iconoclast of dance-theatre in her hometown Wuppertal

This week the world-renowned Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch arrives in London - for the first time, without its towering creator. Last summer the German choreographer died at the age of 68. The company intends to continue, despite the dodgy track record for troupes formed around one singular giant vision to survive long without that magnet at the core.

Dance 2000-9: From Ballet to Hip Hop

Hip hop and buildings rose while dance and ballet got static

The Noughts were a bonanza time for builders, scientists and bureaucrats in the dance arena, throwing up numerous fine dance venues and bases, collaborating intellectually with modern choreographers, or targeting social minorities, but the blazing new trend that captured public imagination dodged all of those - it came up from the street. As if to show that dance doesn’t need all these people to organise it into existence, hip hop was the powerful new physical force in the land, providing all the things that the contemporary dance movement of the Nineties seemed increasingly to ignore.

Eonnagata, Sylvie Guillem/ Robert LePage/ Russell Maliphant, Sadler’s Wells

A constellation of stars and a ripping yarn about a cross-dresser - but the result is excessively courteous

With five first-magnitude stars in it you're expecting at least a five-star show from Eonnagata, the collaboration between ballerina Sylvie Guillem, theatre director Robert Lepage, choreographer Russell Maliphant, designer Alexander McQueen and lighting genius Michael Hulls - possibly even the Milky Way. But I can't divvy up more than two stars for the result.