Dance hall dynamite just keeps on giving: Pina Bausch/Meryl Tankard: Kontakthof, Echoes of 78 review

Sadler’s Wells, London
This parody of courting rituals brings back its inaugural dancers 48 years on – ghosting their onstage choreography with footage of their younger selves, for a moving look at the passing of time

‘My name is Arthur, Arthur Rosenfeld. I’m nearly 74,” says the self-proclaimed “sprightly old geezer” on stage. “My name is Meryl Tankard. I’m 70,” says the woman next to him. Josephine, 76; Ed, 80; John, 79 … these are some of our dancers this evening, performing live on stage but also accompanied by the ghosts of their younger selves.

Kontakthof is the dance that keeps on giving. Created by the late Pina Bausch, German dance-theatre doyenne, in 1978, it’s set in a dance hall to songs of the 1930s. The piece is an oddly affecting parody of courting rituals and friction between the sexes – petty cruelties, intimidation, questions of consent. Like the nature documentary that briefly plays in the second half, it’s a detached observation of our species’ strange behaviour.

Kontakthof has been performed in multiple iterations, most memorably in London in 2010 with two casts, one a group of teenagers, the other a company of nonprofessionals over 65, putting completely different filters of experience on exactly the same steps. This latest version devised by Tankard, however, is special. These eight dancers (a ninth was unable to perform this evening) are all members of the original cast, reunited, dancing their old roles. The backdrop is the film of their 1978 performance, so they are mirrored by the spectres of their younger selves; time folded in on itself.