Conversations in ten questions 89: Malou Airaudo

On a cool but sunny late May Saturday, I walk through the crowded and chaotic streets of Boğazkesen into a small courtyard that widens as I move in a funnel shape. This is çakSTÜDYO, the studio of Çıplak Ayaklar Kumpanyası in Çukurcuma. This space and the courtyard in front of it, which the troupe converted from an old car repair shop in 2007, is like an oasis with its benches and plants. I find a shady spot and sit down. Billie Holiday's song ‘I'll be seeing you’ is coming out of the open door of the studio, and the softly sung numbers ‘One, two, three, one two, three...’. Soon I realise that the workshop is over with the sound of applause. A woman with bushy and dishevelled hair sticks her head out and we greet each other. She is the person I am about to interview: Malou Airaudo. 

The students who participated in the workshop leave one by one. Malou also goes out, and finding the courtyard noisy, we go back into the studio. Mihran [Tomasyan] takes us to the studio of photographer Atalay Yeni, which is adjacent to the studio, so that the participants of another workshop that starts an hour later will not disturb us.

Malou Airaudo, with the organisation of Banu Açıkdeniz, was in Turkey for the second time after October 2024, this time for a longer period of time and geography; she gave various workshops in Istanbul and Izmir between 20 May - 13 June 2025. 

I also attended one of her workshops many years ago; it was organised in Wuppertal in 2014 as part of the 40th anniversary of the Tanztheater Wuppertal (Wuppertal Dance Theatre), it was open to those who did not have a dance formation, and she gave it together with Pascal Merighi, another Pina Bausch dancer. I tell this to Malou, naturally she doesn't remember; who knows how many countless workshops and students have passed before her over the years...

Then I show her a photo of us together on my mobile phone; about 45 minutes after I had seen common ground[s], which she and Germaine Acogny had staged and danced together in Paris in 2022, at La Villette, Malou with Brigitte Lefèvre, former director of the Paris Opera Ballet, and her friends coincidentally entered the door of the restaurant where I had gone with my friend. At my friend's insistence, I went to her and had my photo taken with her. Of course, she doesn't remember this moment either. How could she remember it; it was one of the many Parisian evenings when she had just finished the show and her excitement had just subsided...

Au Boeuf Couronné, Paris (27th September 2022)

© Mustafa Emre Gügen

After this warm-up introduction, I'm going to slowly start the conversation with Malou. But, before moving on to my questions and her answers, I would like to briefly introduce her.

Malou Airaudo (1948) started dance lessons at the age of eight at the ballet school of the Marseille Opera, joined the Opera's ballet company directed by Joseph Lazzini in 1963, and joined the newly founded Monte Carlo Ballet under the direction of Léonide Massine in 1965, where she danced in two of Massine's choreographies. Meanwhile, she continued her dance training with teachers such as Marika Besobrasova, Solange Golovine, Rosella Hightower, Alexandre Kalioujny, Madame Nora, Raymond Franchetti and Nina Vyroubova. In 1969 in Amiens, she met Manuel Alum, dancer and choreographer of the Paul Sanasardo Dance Company and followed him to New York in 1970. After taking modern dance lessons with Alum and Sanasardo and ballet lessons with Maggie Black, Airaudo and Pina Bausch crossed paths at the Sanasardo Dance Studio in 1971 and Pina invited her to join the Tanztheater Wuppertal, which was transformed from the Wupperal Ballet in 1973.

She was one of the key figures of Tanztheater Wuppertal's early period, playing important roles in numerous Bausch pieces such as Fritz, Iphigenie auf Tauris, Kindertotenlieder, Orpheus und Eurydike, Café Müller, Bandoneon and Walzer, and taking over the solo created by Marlis Alt in one of Bausch's masterpieces, Das Frühlingsopfer (The Rite of Spring).

In addition to working with Pina Bausch, she worked with Carolyn Carlson, founded the dance company La Main in Paris with Jacques Patarozzi, Dominique Mercy, Helena Pikon and Dana Sapiro. Having created pieces for companies such as Folkwang Tanzstudio, Ballet de Lorraine and Grand Théâtre de Genève, she was invited to the German Dance Platform in 2012 with her production Irgendwo for the breakdance and hip-hop dance collective Renegade, and has been the artistic director of Renegade with Zekai Fenerci since 2019.

At the invitation of Pina Bausch, Airaudo was professor of modern dance at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen from 1984 until her retirement in 2018, and director of the Institute of Contemporary Dance at the same university from 2012 to 2018. In 2023, together with three other early Bausch dancers (Josephine Ann Endicott, Lutz Förster and Dominique Mercy), she received the German Dance Prize.

I said briefly, but Malou Airaudo's CV is so magnificent that I didn't know where to shorten it. I will now move on to our conversation with her.

What is the essence of performance in your opinion?

For me, it's all about sharing it with people, meeting new people, getting to know their personalities and working with them. I prefer the studio; I like being in the studio and working there. I don't really like performing. Performances make me stressed.

Do you believe in the transformative power of art? How?

For the people coming to class; yes, I believe that art can have a powerful effect on them. I think so, I hope so.

At this point, Malou talks about a young student in the workshop that has just finished; after telling how he has developed throughout the process and how promising he is for the future, she states that she believes that young people like him will do something good for the world as they witness their development in the process.

For the audience; pieces like Café Müller, Orpheus and Eurydike are about life and death. They have something to say about these topics. But I don't know if people really understand them; their beauty; the music and the dancers. We, as artists, give so much to the public. I gave my life, and I think that may be enough to touch someone. We did, we did with Pina.

When working on a piece, what sources inspire you? 

I have worked with many different types of dancers, including B-Boys, breakdance and folklore dancers. When I make a piece, there is a group of people and I ask questions. I tried to show the B-Boy or breakdance performers how I wanted them to move, I taught them some moves, but it didn't work. I loved them anyway, because they put so much effort into it and worked really hard. It's incredible what they do. 

Do dreams play a role in your pieces?

No, I’m working with the reality of people. I think I'm very much in the present, in NOW and HERE, not in the past or the future, not in somewhere else.

When do you decide to give a title to a piece you are working on, if it does not already have one?

This is very important because it is so hard. For example, I created Schwarze Katze with Renegade Dance Company. I was working really hard, and then I went to park with my three children. I saw a black cat and said, "Yes, Schwarze Katze, Schwarze Katze", because the performers move like a black cat. Also, 'schwarze katze' means 'weapon' in German, so it has two meanings. So, I find my titles very intuitively. I don't think about them, but they just pop into my head.

Are there any artists or persons who you think influenced your art most? And if there is such an artist or person, who is that?

My teachers had a big influence on me. They are not only teachers, they are also talented artists.

When I think of choreographers, Pina is the one who influences me most. We were together. At first, we worked on her pieces together. Later, she started to sit and ask questions. But at the beginning, she was moving with me. She was doing the movements, so I told her to do them again. She was choreographing and I was looking on. All the young people who joined the company later didn't get to see her dance.

When you consider the current state of the world in every sense, what is the most important and urgent issue for you as an artist?

To keep going. Keep going and do what you believe in. I keep going and try to show the young generation how important their profession is.

You played an important role in the creative process of Pina Bausch’s pieces between 1974-1982. Compared to other dancers of the early period of Tanztheater Wuppertal you were the first one to stop dancing in the pieces of Pina Bausch. What was the reason?

Firstly, life has always given me chances. People asked me to do things, and I always said yes. I didn't reject anything. I'm very open to new things, like I was when I did the latest duo with Germaine.

Secondly, I was one of the first dancers to work with Pina, alongside Dominique, Ed Kortlandt, Jan Minarek and Josephine Ann Endicott. We were all ballet dancers. We are not actors; I’m not an actress — I’m a dancer. We are dancers. At one point during the creative process, Pina started asking questions and requested an improvisation. Someone started singing and someone started playing music. People like Cristiana Morganti and Lutz Förster started to speak because they have that talent. You have to have the talent to speak. And Pina took it. But I didn’t want to speak.

You are dancer, choreographer, teacher, director. Which of those professions do you enjoy the most?

I love all of them. If I just teach, it's not enough. If I just make a piece, it's not enough. If I just dance, it's not enough. That they're all connected, is very important for me. When I teach, I help people to move better. When I make a piece, I become creative and I discover people. When I dance I try to be there with all my life and emotions. If I was only dancing, I'd get frustrated. If I was only making pieces, I'd get frustrated. Well teaching; I could teach anywhere and at any time, because during teaching I could always find new things to inspire me and motivate me to create something.

At that moment, referring to a movement made by a student in the workshop she had just left, she said, ‘There was such a beautiful movement that I thought I would like to use it in a piece.’

When I work with people, it gives me the inspiration to create a piece. I don't know if I'm a choreographer because it's hard. In order for something to be a choreography, you need to create all the movements out of your own body. It's really difficult to teach someone your own movements and expect them to be able to do them. So that's why you let them make improvisations – to find out what they're like. Just some really great dancers who have strong technique can perform Pina Bausch's pieces like Iphigenie auf Tauris, Café Müller or Orpheus and Eurydike. Unlike in her later pieces, she was the only one who created all the choreography for these pieces.

‘When you dance in Café Müller, you have to do a lot of foot and body postures one after the other, and you need a strict technique to be able to do them,’ says Malou Airaudo, standing up at this point and performing some very simple moves from Café Müller.

Which is your favourite Pina Bausch piece to watch and which is to perform?

All of her early pieces like Die sieben Todsünden, Orpheus and Eurydike, Komm tanzt mit mir, Le sacre du printemps, Iphigenie auf Tauris and Café Müller are fantastic and incredible. I think they are all great pieces.

[The Turkish version of this article was published in unlimited.]