The Body of the People: East German Dance since 1945

5. Toward a Transnational History of East German Dance: The Choreography of Patricio Bunster (1930s to Present)

157 5 Toward a Transnational History of East German Dance The Choreography of Patricio Bunster (1930s to Present) Global Mobilities On August 11, 2006, I was scheduled to fly from London, via New York, to Santiago, Chile, when the UK government uncovered an alleged terrorist plot to simultaneously blow up several US-bound passenger planes flying over the Atlantic Ocean.1 Heathrow airport became complete chaos. Our baggage was checked and rechecked repeatedly. Flights were canceled; passengers were delayed for hours on end. Finally, we were allowed to board the aircraft without any personal possessions. No laptop, no iPod, no books or pens for a twenty-twohour flight. The imminent threat effectively challenged all global mobility. I had originally planned to spend the flight reviewing notes in preparation for my interview with communist Chilean choreographer Patricio Bunster. Bunster had made such international journeys many times, some of them voluntarily as an international dance artist, others of them involuntarily as an emigrant escaping imprisonment, torture, and possible execution. The terrorist threat forced me to situate myself in relation to these differing kinds of migration: the voluntary and involuntary movements across national divides, the adjusting to drastically different cultures, the amending of one’s original culture during the process of adaptation, sometimes returning “home” while maybe never feeling truly home anywhere again. My interview with Bunster would be his last, for he passed away just five weeks after I met him in his home near the Espiral dance center that he and 158 Toward a Transnational History of East German Dance Joan Turner founded in Santiago after his return from a twelve-year exile in East Germany in 1985. Trained by Kurt Jooss and Sigurd Leeder, Bunster had been one of Chile’s leading choreographers prior to his exile. In 1973, after the Pinochet putsch, he sought political asylum in East Germany. He eventually ended up teaching at the Palucca School and successfully choreographed several works. By 1985, when Bunster was finally allowed to return to Chile, he had trained a new generation of dancers and choreographers in East Germany and reintroduced them to a lost part of the Ausdruckstanz tradition. Santiago, August 12, 2006 I am at a café having a café con leche out of a cup, which exudes the fragrance of really nice Western dishwashing liquid with every sip. I am trying to concentrate on my sense of taste and turn off the sense of smell to tune out the discrepancy between the familiar Western smell and the unfamiliar Chilean café atmosphere with its foreign furnishing and excitingly different breakfast items. Listening to French chansons on my iPod, drinking coffee in Santiago, smelling Western dishwashing liquid, comparing my own journey across national divides with Bunster’s emigration, I am struck by the multinational experience of this day. I just called the East German dancer Raymond Hilbert, through whom I was able to make contact with Patricio Bunster. Bunster was utilized by the East German government as an example of the transnational artistic expression of the working class’s united international struggle. Yet in his native Chile, he helped establish modern dance education and led both the national dance company and the main dance department at the University of Santiago based on his understanding of Ausdruckstanz. I am going to see Bunster’s choreography tonight. I have never seen any of his works live; thus, I am understandably excited. I am especially thrilled because his company will show older choreographies. The main reason that I am interested in Bunster’s older work is because I hope to see a manifestation of his earlier attempt to create a pan-American movement vocabulary that would transcend national definitions but still bear traces of regional expressions. Bunster wrote a manifesto in the late 1960s that clearly outlined this endeavor. The movement was supposed to draw from existing movement vocabularies, mostly folk movements and modern dance, but he didn’t rule out an exploration of ballet. Bunster empowers this merger of locally demarcated vocabulary with globalized movements— such as modern dance vocabulary derived from German modern dance and ballet—with the potential to restructure existing nationally defined movement in all senses of the word. This utopian understanding of the Toward a Transnational History of East German Dance 159 capacity of movement as a global unifier and transformer seems to recall early modern dance’s vision for a changed world through corporeal awareness...