Carnations and Catharsis: Pina Bausch’s 'Carnation' Returns to Seoul
Creatrip Team
4 months ago
Pina Bausch’s landmark dance-theatre work 'Carnation' (카네이션) by Tanztheater Wuppertal reopened in Seoul after 25 years at LG Arts Center, running through the 9th and moving to Sejong Center on the 14th–15th. Audiences enter a stage carpeted with some 9,000 pink carnations, then witness a shifting world where gentle, everyday actions—singing, play, eating—are disrupted by sudden oppression and violence, transforming joy into pain. The piece blends multiple languages and non-linear scenes, emphasizing repeated symbolic sequences and physical gestures over straightforward narrative; dancers walk, cry, laugh and sometimes sign lyrics (sign language). Though Pina Bausch died in 2009, her methods and themes endure through performers who worked with her and now transmit her legacy, keeping the work’s emotional power intact. The production raises the question “Why do we dance?” as it moves audiences through love, fear, desire and the human condition.
