Café Müller

Café Müller is a dance choreographed by Pina Bausch set to the music of Henry Purcell. It has been performed regularly since its creation and in May 1978 was performed and filmed at the Opernhaus, and broadcast on German television in December of that year.

Original production
Pina Bausch created and performed Café Müller for her dance company Tanztheater Wuppertal. The performance took place on May 20, 1978 at the Opernhaus Wuppertal. The dance was inspired by and based on her childhood memories of watching her father work at his café in Germany during and immediately following World War II.

Televised broadcast
Café Müller was broadcast on German television in December 1985.

Director and choreographer: Pina Bausch

Music: Henry Purcell's The Fairy-Queen and Dido and Aeneas.

Costume and Set Designer: Rolf Borzik

Cast:
 * Pina Bausch
 * Malou Airaudo
 * Domenique Mercy
 * Jan Minarik
 * Nazareth Panadero
 * Jean Laurent Sasportes

Tours

 * 1980: Nancy
 * 1980: Curitiba, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Porto Alegre, Santiago de Chile, Buenos Aires, Lima, Bogota, Caracas, Mexico City
 * 1981: Parma, Torin, En Gedi, En Hashovez, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Cologne
 * 1982: Paris, Vienna, Rome
 * 1983: Hamburg 1984 Sassari, Cagliari, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, Hamburg
 * 1985: Paris, Venice, Madrid, Grenoble
 * 1986: Lyon, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto
 * 1987: East-Berlin, Gera, Cottbus, Dresden, Athens, Wroclaw, Prague, Kosice
 * 1988: Reggio, Cremona, Bologna, Modena
 * 1992: Edinburgh
 * 1993: Munich, Paris, Moscow
 * 1994: Lisbon
 * 1995: Budapest, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Avignon, Tel Aviv
 * 1998: Stockholm, Malmö
 * 1999: Berlin
 * 2002: Leuven, Geneva, Dresden
 * 2003: Bochum
 * 2006: Brussels, Tokyo, Athens
 * 2007: Beijing
 * 2008: London, Lisbon, Barcelona
 * 2008: Düsseldorf
 * 2009: São Paulo
 * 2010: Seoul, Monaco
 * 2011: Warsaw
 * 2013: Taipei, Kaohsiung, Goeteborg, Naples, Bordeaux, Antwerpen
 * 2016: Wellington, Nîmes
 * 2017: Ghent, New York, Antwerp, Ottawa, Hong Kong

Summary of movement
The piece takes place on a stage strewn with chairs. The chairs are placed randomly, but cover the length of the performance space. There is a door upstage right leading to a revolving door, and doors on either side of the stage.

There are six dancers, three men and three women. Two of the men wear suits, the third wears a loose white shirt tucked into trousers and dances barefoot. Two of the women, one portrayed by Bausch herself, wear long white dresses with bare feet, the other wears a dress, overcoat, and heels.

The dance moves about the stage, dancers shifting in and out of duet. At various moments, one or more dance with eyes closed, rushing across the stage strewn with chairs while the other dancers rush about them moving furniture out of the way.

The movement is often frantic and repetitive, halting with a feeling of exhaustion. There are themes of manipulation and dependence throughout the dance, which are realized through intense repetition as well as trust between dancers that they will keep each other safe on stage in varying states of awareness. The dancers rely on each other to clear their paths as they dance with their eyes shut, a strong example of the trust shared on-stage.