Bausch’s works at the Wuppertal Tanztheatre have been known to be avant-garde and experimental and have elicited responses from people like Susan Sontag, Peter Brook and Robert Wilson. In India with her latest production, Bamboo Blues, which will be staged on January 18 and 19 at the Rabindra Sadan, Bausch reveals that the play was born out of a trip to India back in 2006. “Martin Waelde, a former director of Max Mueller Bhavan in Kolkata had often asked me to do something around India . We came for a fortnight to Kolkata and Kerala, and then went back, each with our own recollections and we worked around that material. It is impossible for us to do a piece on India because we know so little about it. But this piece is influenced by India,” says the 67-year-old.

However, Bausch’s association with the country is almost 25 years old, since the time she came down to India with her production Rights of Spring in 1979. She made a trip to Kerala in 1994. “Bamboo Blues is a culmination of her Indian associations and experiences,” says Subramanian Raman, programmedirector of the Max Mueller Bhavan Kolkata.

A lot of Bausch’s works deal with eroticism and violence and universal emotions of loss, death, loneliness and grief. Much of it is dark and lacerating, with the form being often unstructured, and fragmentary. As she sits smoking her favourite brand of Camel cigarette, dressed in black, the gentle, almost hesitant artiste ponders why. “I have always been interested to know what moves people. What is it about life, and love and living that makes us react the way we do,” she says. And her exploration took her to dance therapy classes for trauma victims in Kolkata, a boat trip down the Hooghly, laughing clubs along the Lake, the humdrum of the Burrabazar wholesale market, the serpentine North Kolkata lanes. “It is not necessary that vignettes of her experiences will find direct expressions in the piece. Bamboo Blues will be somewhat an emotional composite,” says Raman.

Even if the theme is not overtly Indian, the Indian references are obvious. The music for the piece, a collaborative effort by various musicians includes names like Sivamani, Trilok Gurtu, Talvin Singh and several other Indian artistes. The 18-member troupe that will take to the stage will also have an Indian face-Shantala Shivalingappa who is also a part of three of Bausch’s other productions.

Much of the materials that Bausch works with is carefully distilled from the experiences of each of the performers in her troupe. “I ask them questions and they all have to write down and emote their responses through actions or dance movements. We then sift through the material for days, looking for what fits and what doesn’t. It’s a long process and you often have to leave out things you like the most,” she reflects.

Although she is not a stranger to India , Bausch says as a country it never ceases to amaze her. “I am like a child, looking at so many things which are different on the surface, but similar within. There is so much of culture and architectural richness that each time I come here I feel amazed,” she says.