I won't pretend to be the knowledgeable dance historian here. Stanford provides a detailed, readable presentation of all the information you need to find out.
Its significance for me is, Bausch's Tanztheater Wuppertal is at once subconcious and superficially social. It confirms that the human being is at once tugged by many strings, and can hence be read in many ways when the body-soul union presents itself on stage. It also confirms to me the strength of the marriage of theatre/narrative and dance - but narrative in the broadest of sense, not the traditional linear plots like some classical dance.
I think the visual symbolism in, for example, a sea of carnations on stage (Nelken) is as potent and immediately impactful on the subconscious, as some of Samuel Beckett's symbols such as the barrels. It's a weird sense of disturbance, or unsettling, that I get.
Also, Bausch shows angst on stage. Artists, critics and audience rant against the showing of angst on stage. Bausch is clear in what she sees as, roughly speaking, "the human condition". But angst is also infused with many other things... wit, innocence, satire, exhaustion... angst is complex, it is real, it is human.
Pina Bausch is a recurring, mystical source of inspiration for me.
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