Pina Bausch, the protean and influential German choreographer who died in 2009, is the subject of a large scale exhibition at the Martin Gropius Bau, Pina Bausch and the Dance Theater, on view until January 9, 2017. The Berliner Festspiele, the arts organization that runs the museum, has organized an extensive accompanying program, whose indisputable highlight is a visit from Bausch's dance troupe, the Tanztheater Wuppertal.
This weekend, they perform Bausch's 1989 work Palermo, Palermo for the first time in the German capital. Over the course of the performance, a brick wall tumbles down and cherry trees are raised by rope to music by Grieg and Paganini as well as traditional Sicilian tunes (the piece was devised as a co-production with the Teatro Biondo Stabile in Palermo). The Telegraph, reviewing a 2012 guest performance at Sadlers' Wells called Palermo, Palermo "one of [Bausch's] most compelling works, full of beauty, horror and surreal humor."
Watch an Italian TV report about the making of the piece from 1990.