Last Updated on February 15, 2026
“Dance is a powerful way to express emotions that words cannot.” – Pina Bausch
5.0 out of 5.0 starsVollmond, a visually captivating tour de force of a show is revolutionary choreographer Pina Bausch at her finest, featuring 12 highly accomplished dancers; a stage that includes a giant boulder, a river and a mini monsoon; a delightfully eclectic soundtrack; and a series of vignettes of human relationships in heightened states of intensity.
Pina Bausch is widely regarded as one of the most influential and pioneering choreographers of our time. Any new production of her works in London is greeted with excitement and anticipation and this mood was certainly in evidence at Sadler’s Wells Theatre on Friday’s opening night of a new production of Bausch’s Vollmond. Born in 1940 in Solingen, Germany Bausch trained in dance at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen. Here she was strongly influenced by Kurt Jooss, a prominent figure in German expressionist dance, and went on to join the Wuppertal Dance Theater in 1973. She served as the Theatre’s artistic director until her death in 2009 and it was under her leadership that Wuppertal Dance Theater gained international acclaim for its groundbreaking productions. Bausch wanted to blur the boundaries between dance, theatre and performance art and it was this unique blend of disciplines that set her creations apart and brought her and her Wuppertal company international prominence.
Bausch’s career spanned over four decades during which time she created 55 dance productions. Her approach was always collaborative, starting with a rudimentary idea and developing the piece as a dialogue with her dancers and long-time set design collaborators Rolf Borzik and Peter Pabst. Her productions are a fusion of dance, spoken dialogue and performance art, often characterised by unusual stage design (in Nelken the stage is covered with artificial carnations; in Rite of Spring it is covered with soil). Her works focus on human relationships and emotions; she had an exceptional ability to represent these powerfully in her choreography. A Pina Bausch production offers the audience a profound and intense experience, both visually and emotionally. Bausch passed away in 2009, leaving behind a magnificent legacy which continues to influence and inspire others today.
Vollmond was one of the last works ever created by Bausch in 2006. Literally translated the title means “full moon” or “high tide”. They say the full moon has the ability to move the tides and affect people’s emotions, and the heightened emotions of the characters that we meet in Vollmond certainly bear this out. The stage design is spartan – as the audience takes their seats, all we see on stage is a giant boulder the size of a car in the back corner of the stage, sparkling subtly under the dim lights. Before long, there is also an ankle-deep river of water flowing across the width of the stage and under the boulder – frankly, not something you see very often on a stage and an impressive technical feat in and of itself! The soundtrack is intriguingly eclectic, ranging from composers Amon Tobin (Brazilian) and René Aubry (French) to veteran pop star Tom Waits and the Vivaldi-esque fast-string rhythms of the Balanescu Quartet.
Vollmond sees Bausch in a lighter mood than much of her earlier work – from the start, there are touches of playfulness and humour. As the lights go down, two dancers appear on stage and proceed to create makeshift musical wind instruments from plastic water bottles and sticks in surprising ways – and this is just the first of many whimsical surprises that the production rewards us with. There is no overarching storyline as such but rather a series of extended solos and duets interspersed with joyfully chaotic group dances. But each vignette introduces us to one or more characters in search of romantic or platonic connection, in varying degrees of playfulness, joy, anger and anguish. The full gamut of human emotion is on display here, dialled up to maximum intensity, as it might be when the moon is full. It is in some ways the contemporary dance equivalent of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Vollmond is laced with intriguing ambiguities throughout. Here, a man dances alone, sometimes writhing on the floor seemingly unable to control his own limbs – but is he dancing in joy or in pain? Elsewhere two men dance together in a wonderful sequence where they collapse on each other in turn and then lift each other up by their waistbands – but are they two friends drunkenly helping each other home or two rivals fighting? A woman repeatedly runs full tilt across the stage, only to be caught by two male dancers as she is about to fall into the audience – but are they rescuing or abducting her? A woman stares out into the audience and starts to laugh, haltingly at first but then with more and more gusto until it is hard to tell whether this is humour or hysteria.
As with other Bausch pieces, sexual politics and tension are never far beneath the surface. Throughout the first half of the performance, women seem to have the upper hand. A woman repeatedly marches across the stage and without warning passionately kisses a man whose body language radiates shocked surprise. A femme fatale uses a man as a chair to hang her coat on – and to sit on. Another woman gets two men to compete to see how fast they can remove her bra. But in the second half of Vollmond, there is a darker ambiguity – a man grabs and passionately kisses a woman and then violently shakes her. Before she can react, he repeats the kiss and the shaking while she stands impassively – but when others try to pull them apart, she clings steadfastly to him. In a scene that speaks to the vulnerability of women, a woman walks across the stage taking comically exaggerated steps, fluffing her pink dress theatrically as she walks, and says cheerfully: “How to stay safe: make yourself as big as possible!”.
And then, of course, there is the microclimate created by the stage design. The giant boulder symbolises steadfast constancy; while the flowing river symbolises change and fluidity. It is the tension between these two concepts that underlies the entire piece so it is only right that the stage shapes the narrative and influences the dances. Dancers run through the ankle-deep river; they “swim” in it (no mean feat, given the shallow depth!) and even float under the boulder; they scoop up water from it to throw around the stage. And the water is not confined to the river – it is variously poured from bottles, squirted from pistols, drunk from glasses and hurled from buckets. The boulder gets climbed over, swum under and even at one point claimed by a dancer (who hugs the boulder and declares it “mine!” rather like Gollum and his ring). And then there is the rain, produced on stage from an invisible sprinkler system in the rafters. Sometimes it is a fine misty drizzle and at other times, a tropical monsoon with fat drops making audible plops. The dancers’ costumes progressively get soaked from their interactions with the river and the rain, and by the final water fight, they are all drenched. But it is not only the dancers that are affected – a faint cool breeze generated by all the moving water fans out over the stalls, where you can smell the moisture in the air and hear the water gurgling under the boulder. The audience is invited to share in some small measure what the dancers are experiencing – it is a delight and a triumph of minimalist stage design.
Each cast member manages to project their own unique personality through a combination of some spoken word, some physical theatre (there is a comical William Tell sequence with a water pistol), and of course their dancing. Bausch’s brilliance is evident in the fact that despite the lack of an overarching narrative, every vignette makes you curious – how do these people know each other? How did this scenario develop? And above all, what happens next? You genuinely care about each mini-storyline. Tom Waits purrs: “How’s it going to end?” – and you find yourself genuinely wanting to know.
The dancing throughout Vollmond is a joy to experience, and the cast includes two dancers from the original 2006 production. Each dance is filled with powerfully expressive movements, eloquently conveying the turmoil of inner emotions. The tight formal constraints of classical ballet have little place here – there is a primal wildness to much of the dancing. But it always remains precise and technically impressive, and there are some familiar echoes of movements from earlier Bausch pieces to be seen here and there. Aside from the excellent solo sequences, there are a number of scenes where all the dancers are on stage together in riotous, joyful chaos. My favourites are a musical chairs-inspired scene featuring dancers jumping on chairs to kiss each other; a visually stunning scene where buckets of water are thrown at the boulder, creating a sparkling confetti of droplets with each impact; and the final scene which resembles children having an uninhibited water fight: a joyous celebration of life to end this life-affirming show.
Nearly 20 years after it premiered, Vollmond has lost none of its power to surprise and captivate. Like the tide and the full moon, you cannot fail to be moved by it.
Vollmond runs at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre in Islington until 23 February. Limited tickets are still available.
Vollmond
Sadler’s Wells
Rosebery Avenue,
London,
EC1R 4TN
Looking for something different? We also recommend Folclor from Acosta Danza at the Linbury
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