Learning to Dance with Pina Bausch: An Encounter of Tanztheater and Gestalt Therapy

Abstract

According to Laura Perls, therapy is more art than science. With this in mind, the present work presents a connection between pieces, the creative process, and the thought of Pina Bausch with Gestalt therapy. Gestalt therapy founders had artistic lives, most notably Paul Goodman, a celebrated writer, playwright, poet, and Laura Perls, a gifted pianist and lifelong dancer. The constitutive elements of the Wuppertal Tanztheater - dance and theater - have been integral to Gestalt therapy since its inauguration. The word "dance" is ubiquitous in Gestalt therapy texts, sometimes as an instrument of awareness and contact with the body, sometimes as an analogy and metaphor of human relationships and living. Gestalt therapy concepts such as "phenomenological method", "self", and "creative adjustment" will be explored with a composite look, a marriage between Gestalt therapy and Pina Bausch. The common element found in these two ways of producing is the search for self-knowledge or awareness, beyond spoken language, recognizing the limits of the verbal to express human living. Pina offers us a way to materialize the ineffable in such a way that can be absorbed by Gestalt therapy practice.