Rehearsing In-Difference

Abstract

European choreographers Pina Bausch and Jérôme Bel share a critical line of inquiry into the established dance practices of their time, putting both the identity of their subjects and the identity of the genre of dance at risk. By addressing and including their own rehearsal processes in the performance, Bausch and Bel play with their own aesthetic strategies and their coming into being as social practices. As the author argues, the political, here, lies in the blurring of definite and defining categories, thus creating ambivalent and polyvalent scenes that defy explanation. Yet, Bausch and Bel’s work on repetition also produces an excess of energy that blurs distinctions and differences. As an emotional response to a rhythm that is created out of the in-difference to difference, this force undoes what subjects have learned socially. It is here that their freedom lies.